Lords Sitting of 27 June 1979

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Rochester.
The Lord Mostyn—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

ACT OF HABEAS CORPUS
Lord MORRIS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the fact that this year is the 300th anniversary of the first Act of Habeas Corpus, what plans they have for drawing this to the attention of the public in a suitable manner.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): My Lords, the Act of 1679 did not create the remedy of habeas corpus, which has existed from the earliest days of the common law. Nor was that Act the first attempt by the legislature to guarantee that ancient common law right. It was in fact the third such attempt; the first being the Petition of Right in 1627, the second being the Statute 16 Charles I, Chapter 10, in 1640. The Act of 1679 is, therefore, only one chapter in the long story of habeas corpus. It is an important chapter, no doubt, but it is in the middle and not at the beginning of the book which starts with Magna Carta, and it does not call for special celebration. I think the most appropriate way to mark this anniversary is to ensure that the law continues to be properly enforced, and that this country continues to be the bulwark, prophet, and protector throughout the world of human dignity and freedom.
Lord MORRIS: My Lords, would not the noble and learned Lord agree that the principle underlying the Act of Habeas Corpus is the legal fulcrum
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upon which all human rights move? Furthermore, where Western European countries deny this principle in their practice of the law the collective voice of Europe on matters of human rights is weakened.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the principle is contained in Magna Carta which is that no man should be deprived of his liberty or his life without due process of law. I believe that the countries of Western Europe are an example to the rest of the world. I certainly would not pretend that everything is perfect there or even here, but I think the collective voice of Europe certainly should be heard on these matters, and heard loudly and clearly.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, in view of the undoubted importance of habeas corpus as a protector of the liberty of the subject against false imprisonment and unlawful detention, would it not perhaps be useful, however tenuous, possibly, the historic significance of 1679 may be, to raise this matter at the United Nations where there are so many nations who do not enjoy the protection of this remedy for their people?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I will certainly see that what the noble and learned Lord has rightly said is brought to the attention of my noble friend the Foreign Secretary.
Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS: My Lords, would the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor agree that the principle on which habeas corpus is based is important enough to be commemorated? Although 1679 is, as he described, only mid-way in its development, ought we not to remember that Christmas Day itself was not the actual day upon which the great event took place, but the fact that it is celebrated as it is, though not the actual day, helps to spread the merits of the principle on which Christianity is based?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I do not know the actual day upon which the birth of the Saviour of the World actually took place, but I would agree that Christmas Day has the benediction of the united Church of

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Christ, with very few exceptions, on 25th December. I certainly would not like to see that altered. But, my Lords, I am not sure that the Act of 1679 is quite of equal dimension or quite so universally accepted. As to whether it is mid-way, that would imply that the right should have an end, which I hope will not be the case.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, when the noble and learned Lord is discussing this matter with his noble friend the Foreign Secretary, as he has undertaken to do, will he draw his attention to the fact that in Argentina, a country with which we are about to restore diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level, the law of habeas corpus is widely flouted and the authorities refuse to disclose the fact that individuals are held in custody when writs are moved in the courts by citizens on behalf of people detained?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, if I were to single out to my noble friend the case of Argentina for special treatment, I think that he would tell me that it was not the only instance.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that history shows that, when the Act was passed in 1679, it was passed in the Lords by the counting of one very stout Peer as having 10 votes?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord is possibly confusing this Act with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714 or the Act of Settlement 1702.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My Lords, it was the Bill of Rights which came earlier.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his correction. I felt sure that it was not the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679.
Lord GORDON-WALKER: My Lords, is it not true that the Habeas Corpus (amendment) Act of 1679 is different from all preceding steps, in that that is the form in which our liberty through habeas corpus has remained from that day to this?
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I think that, if the noble Lord were to refer to the textbooks, they would more or less bear out what I have said about the matter. It is true that the Act of 1679 is still upon the statute book and so, I think, is the Act of 1816 and the Act of 1862. However, I think that the books will confirm my view that the common law preceded it and is the true form in which the right is defined. I could cite medieval cases to that effect.
The LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL (Lord Soames): My Lords, much as I feel we have enjoyed these exchanges, I hope that your Lordships will agree to move on.

PRUSSIA COVE: PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT
2.47 p.m.
Lord BULLOCK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will intervene to prevent the proposed development of a chalet and caravan site in Prussia Cove, which is designated as an area of outstanding natural beauty on the South Cornish coast.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, planning permission for 60 holiday chalets and associated services at Joyce's Farm, Higher Kenneggy, which is close to Prussia Cove—was granted in 1972 and some work has already been carried out. Any decision to intervene must, first of all, be taken by the local authority and in the circumstances my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment would not wish to intervene.
Lord BULLOCK: My Lords, in the light of the changed circumstances since the planning permission was originally granted 10 years ago—changes of opinion and of policy, and such efforts as that of Operation Neptune to save the nation's coastline—does the noble Lord not consider that there is at least a case for a

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review before irreversible changes are made by this scheme in an unspoilt and beautiful stretch of the Cornish coast?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, the planning permission was granted, I think, seven years ago and not 10 years ago. However, this stretch of coastline is undoubtedly an area of outstanding natural beauty and, as the noble Lord has said, it is so designated. However, I must point out that the Countryside Commission has not designated it part of the heritage coast. There is an area of 15 miles not so designated. To the East of it there is an area round The Lizard which is totally so designated and further West there is an area of 30 miles which is also so designated. I should also like to tell the House that this site has a bungalow, a caravan site and a camp on it, and therefore it already has a certain amount of usage.

NORTH SEA OIL: EXPLORATION BY PRIVATE COMPANIES
2.48 p.m.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will now take to reverse the recent decline in interest by private enterprise oil companies in exploration of the United Kingdom Continental Shelf.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EMPLOYMENT (The Earl of Gowrie): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government recognise the importance of encouraging further exploration on our Continental Shelf, and to this end, as a first step, have recently announced that the public corporations would no longer have first option on assignments of licence interests. Her Majesty's Government keep the rate of exploration under review, and are considering whether additional steps are needed to encourage exploration.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply and for a more informative reply
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than we used to receive when we sat on the Opposition Benches and put similar Questions, but may I ask him whether he would not consider that the flat increase in PRT, without any particular exemption for marginal fields, is a disincentive to further private enterprise interests?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his rather controversial expressions of gratitude; nevertheless, the Government do not feel that the package as regards PRT will act as a significant disincentive to new exploration or development. Higher oil prices should stimulate exploration for new reserves and the North Sea fiscal regime already contains features to assist the exploration of marginal fields.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, will the Government confirm that they will continue the previous Labour Government's policy of a 51 per cent. participation by BNOC and adequate control over our national oil reserves?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I think it is highly unlikely that the Government would continue policies simply because they were the previous Labour Government's policies. They will continue policies if they hold them to be in the interests of the exploitation of our national resources.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, will not the noble Earl agree that it was only because of the previous Labour Government's policy that the present Government are now able to make arrangements to accept oil in kind rather than in cash?
The Earl of GOWRIE: No, my Lords, I do not agree with that.
Lord WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, although I congratulate the noble Earl on occupying his present position and on speaking for the Government on energy, perhaps I may express my regret and that of others, that the Prime Minister did not see fit to appoint a Minister for Energy from this House. Does the noble Earl consider that the fall-off in the ratio of wildcats to actual discoveries has not been the main reason for the decrease in interest shown by companies in exploration? Can he confirm that in 1974 there

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were 3·4 wildcats per discovery, whereas in 1977 that figure had dropped to 5·8 wildcats per discovery, and that the position was even worse with regard to major discoveries?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, the wildcats will be let loose in this House in a Question from my noble friend tomorrow, and I shall take up that point directly then, as it would be more appropriate. Nevertheless, I agree with the noble Lord that it is obviously true that some of the best and the most profitable sites were exploited first.
Lord MURRAY of GRAVESEND: My Lords, as we are now facing the fact, if we are to believe the experts, that there will be an almost total dry-up of oil by the year 2000, is there not a case for greater State, rather than private enterprise, intervention?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I do not accept the rather bearish expectations of the noble Lord.
The Earl of LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I thank my noble friend further for what he has said. Without wishing to anticipate the letting loose of wildcats tomorrow, will he not agree that much damage has been caused in the industry by the staged approvals programme? Is it not high time that the industry was given clear indications of the terms on which a royalty might be remitted in the case of marginal fields?
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, it is exactly for that reason that we are reviewing the whole programme.

SPEED LIMITS: OBSERVANCE
2.53 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they intend to take to stop the widespread disregard of speed limits on the roads.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, compliance with speed limits may be improved both by enforcement and by education of drivers. Enforcement is for the police, but it is relevant to note that police manpower levels are now appreciably higher than for many years and that a wide range of speed detecting equipment is becoming available. As to education, Her Majesty's Government are undertaking an extensive fuel-saving campaign which will include advice to motorists to drive at economical speeds.
The Lord Bishop of LONDON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer. Will he accept that the driving of motor cars at inordinate speeds, which is rampant in this country, is not only a danger to life and limb, but a very serious consumption of valuable fuel? Will Her Majesty's Government consider the possibility of introducing a speed limit such as obtains throughout the whole of the United States of America, of 55 miles per hour, and also consider imposing penalties which would concentrate the mind on the importance of keeping the law?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I accept what the right reverend Prelate says; there is a great deal in it. Having driven in America, I totally accept the pleasure of driving within a total speed limit of 55 miles per hour. However, in order to achieve the best results in safety terms, limits should not be set at speeds which are substantially lower than those which the majority of drivers regard as reasonable. Experience of previous reductions in speed limits for purposes of fuel economy suggests that they achieve only very small savings. Drivers' awareness of fuel shortage can in itself bring about appreciable reductions in average driving speeds, and the Government's publicity campaign should, we hope, increase understanding of the advantages of lower speeds to the driver.
Lord MOYNE: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government consider introducing, experimentally, speed-breakers? —which I have seen working extremely well in New Delhi, although obviously not on main roads but on other suitable roads.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I believe that a Member of another place is today introducing a Bill to make it legal to allow road-humps or sleeping "policemen", as they are known, to be left in one place for more than a year, which at the moment is not allowed. Furthermore, the Road Research Laboratory is being encouraged by the Department of Transport to investigate matters. We have rumble strips and yellow transverse bar markings; the one makes a loud noise and discourages drivers driving at speed in places which are accident prone, and the other has a visual effect, making one appear to be driving faster than one actually is.
Baroness STEDMAN: My Lords, I compliment the noble Lord on the exposition he has just given us about "sleeping policemen" and so on. Referring to the Question of the right reverend Prelate, surely the Government will not be complacent and say, "Yes, we shall do some educating; we are mounting a publicity campaign". We are being urged to save 5 per cent. in our petrol consumption, which could very easily be achieved if there were only some means of making people drive a little slower than they do at present. One way of doing this would be to have much better enforcement of the present limits, if the Government are not willing to lower the limit altogether.
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: My Lords, I think the noble Baroness for her kind words. It is a combination of all these matters; awareness of how we are hitting our own purse; awareness of education and of the effect these various actions which have already been mentioned have. It is for the police to decide to what extent they enforce the law, and they will do so. They tend to do so where they have received bad reports, where there are flagrant cases of the law being broken and where there are areas prone to accidents.
Lord MACKIE of BENSHIE: My Lords, will the noble Lord not agree that, if the object is to save petrol, it would be much more effective to have a variable tax on horesepower, as we used to have in this country?
Lord MOWBRAY and STOURTON: Yes, my Lords, but that is another question.

SOUTHALL INQUIRY: POLICE COMMISSIONER'S REPORT
Lord DENHAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, my noble friend Lord Belstead will, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon, repeat a Statement on Southall being made in another place.

SERVICE INDUSTRIES AND THE ECONOMY
2.58 p.m.
Lord PARRYrose to call attention to the vital importance of the service sectors of British industry to the health of the economy; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, this nation is in crisis and, despite the sometimes myopic view we have of it, it is not a crisis that has been created by one or other of the two major political parties that have, almost equally, shared the Government of this country over the last 50 years. Indeed, the longer view of history will record that Great Britain was moving into crisis—without recognising it; certainly without doing anything substantial about it—in that long-ago period of the last Liberal Government of this country. Nor, indeed, can that Government be blamed.
There are principles that divide this House; I have seen them at play this afternoon. In a system of democracy, such as ours, not only must there be Government and Opposition to Government, but there must be a radical and a conservative concept of government. What is more, Governments—whatever their label—may be conservatively radical or radically conservative. Time will tell the real nature of the Government elected by the British people on Thursday, 3rd May 1979. I think that just at this moment the Government are living up to a description made from their Front Bench a moment ago, as appearing to move a little faster than they might be.
Speaking in this House as a democrat, though not democratically placed here, I should like to congratulate those noble Members who have been chosen by their democratically-elected Prime Minister to serve in her Administration. In this debate in particular I would wish—not as

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a politeness but as a personal pleasure—to congratulate and to extend good wishes to the young and able London Welshman, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, of Cleddau, who is to reply to the debate on behalf of the Government.
The word, Cleddau, is the Welsh word for a sword. It is not traditional for me, standing here, in this place, in this House, to call the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, my noble friend. But I think he is noble, and I think lie is my friend, none the less, in the best possible sense. He is named for the Cleddau, and is of the family of a Welsh non-Conformist Minister—a radical, indeed. I was born and grew up beside the Cleddau—that great two-edged sword of a river that divides Pembrokeshire—and my father, too, was a Welsh non-Conformist Minister, and a radical! Our debate then should have a sharp edge, but we will not, I think, be slashing at each other, nor emphasising division. The times and the circumstances are too serious for that. And the people of this nation are rightly contemptuous of the cat-calling and back-biting that too often has passed for political debate. Indeed, we have had it for so long that it threatened participatory democracy itself.
I supported the Labour Party in Government, and I support it in Opposition. Having congratulated my Conservative Peers, I congratulate and thank my political noble friends seated around me. Especially, I congratulate the noble Lords and Baronesses who served this House, their party, and their nation in the last Administration. I saw, from very close to them, how desperately hard they worked and how dedicated they were in office. The new Government will, as they have a mandate to do, change the emphasis and the nature of their policies, but they will not better their dedication to, nor their love of, Great Britain.
Having said that, I have to plead the Addison Rules—since I am chairman of the Wales Tourist Board and a member of the British Tourist Authority—and make it clear that, in moving this debate, on a "friendly" Motion, I do so as a rank-and-file Member of your Lordships' House. None of the bodies on which I serve is implicated in my remarks, though some of them might hold similar views to those expressed by me.
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One of those views I have already articulated here. Since your Lordships will not remember my last "utterance", much less what it was that I uttered, I have to repeat it. Great Britain and its empire— "upon which the sun never sets"—passed, at about the time I have already indicated and almost without knowing it, into the long, evening shadows of post-imperialism. In the too often quoted sentence of the American statesman, Dean Acheson, "Britain lost an empire and failed to find a role". Certainly, in losing its empire—and we lost it more gracefully and with less bloodshed than most imperial powers—Britain lost access to cheap, often disgracefully cheap, raw materials. At the same time, at home, the law of rising expectations was compounding the problems. Powers, forces, confidences created by the explosion of our heavy-industrial revolution, were coalescing. New bases for power within society were forming. As the system weakened, they grew stronger and their influence on events was multiplied.
The only sinister thing about that was that this nation, instead of addressing itself to the basic facts—the inevitably changing nature of our British economy—indulged instead in the irrelevancies of dated ideas. Our ideals were probably all right. It was our ideas that were formed and held by what had passed, rather than being challenged by what was yet to be.
My second point is, then, that—just as she passed from an imperial power into a post-imperial country, of great potential, and, indeed, actual influence, without making the proper acknowledgements or corrections of emphasis—Great Britain passed, too, into a post-heavy industrial economy. Your Lordships will know that this thesis has been explored by Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the Hudson Institute. If there is time, I will return to one of their forecasts in: The Next 200 Years. I do not intend to speak for that long. That is the title of the report.
Personally, I have also been encouraged by similar judgments in Bernard D. Nossiter's book, Britain: A Future That Works. The transition, that did not work, was not anyone's fault. The day-to-day management of it could certainly

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have been bettered. The teaching of the fact of it—through our educational system and the media—could obviously have been improved. But rapid evolutionary change—accelerating into revolutionary change in many of those very areas where we taught democracy, probably inadequately, probably to too few, probably too late—had overtaken our own national capacity for, and our will to, change.
The British motor car industry probably gives us an adequate example of what happened. Once we led the world. Twice, during major wars, that industry helped to win peace. Then, in the aftermath of war, as the nation emerged from austerity into "consumer production", it was offered a choice of route. It could either gear itself for the long-term future, by exploiting and developing the overseas markets, or it could go for the easier, rapidly-growing, home demand for cars and motor bikes. There were honourable exceptions, but in the main we went for the cheap and easy market.
Most of the problems of that great industry sprang from that one central fact. In a weakening context, strengths and powers were redisposed. While we enjoyed the luxury of the home, cars and suffered the internicine strikes within the industry, our competitors in Germany and Japan, moving from an almost nonexistent base into dominance, took over the markets of the world, and—in the final irony—stormed the British market.
Anyone disposed to blame only the trade unions, or only the managements, for that, needs to raise his, or her, sights. The fault lies in all of us because we create the national mood. Here, we have an even greater responsibility in this House to analyse rather than to blame, because—at least for a while longer!—this House even influences the national mood. Most of our heavy industries have followed the same route. Our heavy industrial revolution, burning itself out, had to compete with artificially stimulated industrial explosions in Germany and Japan. For a while, heavy industrial expansion there motivated a remarkable boom that still reflects itself in the strength of the deutschmark and of the yen in the international money markets.
But, my third claim is that there are already signs of the passing of the heavy industrial revolution from Western Europe,
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including Germany; from the farthest of the Far East; and equal signs that it is basing itself now in Korea, along the eastern Mediterranean, in Venezuela—and indeed in much of South America. And the pace of that change will accelerate. Only in these countries does an indigenous and therefore relatively cheap fuel source coincide with an actually cheap labour force. That labour force, too, is rapidly being aided by the latest technologies known to man. While warning of the challenge that this presents to our own economy, I, for one, will not wring my hands over the fact that Korea—once the cockpit of war—is rapidly emerging as a silicon chip, and, therefore, a blue chip economy. It is a far better long-term prospect for the world than the flotsam and jetsam, exiled and persecuted, boat people of tragic Vietnam.
Light industry in Britain plays—as it will play—a massively important part in our economy. Aided by high technology, much of it developed here, it has to be our sheet anchor against drift into deeper difficulty. Government, I think, will need to reassure us all that our inventors, investors and front-running workers are being aided in all that they are doing to develop new techniques and technologies. The silicon chip adds an enchanting and, for the layman like me, an almost science fiction dimension. But it is not fiction; it is fact. I do the Government the credit of believing that they will be able to give strong responses to its possibilities.
So then my main contention and my reason for raising this debate today: Throughout this massive change that represents nothing less than the redisposition of the world's industrial and political base, throughout the decline of empire and shaky, and sometimes feeble, adjustments to post-imperialism, through the decline of the pound sterling and the rise of the dollar, the mark, and the yen, there has been one positive factor. Since that positive factor is—in the general gloom—understated, I choose to emphasise it in this Motion. I move it as much to give a new Government an opportunity to expand on the expressions of their Manifesto as to give those other noble Lords—who have so kindly joined me in this debate—the opportunity to address the House on the subject from their specialist positions.

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This is the positive factor. When we have had a balance of payments surplus in our overseas trading account in recent years, most, if not all, of the credit for that has rested, even though it has not always been given to them, with the service sectors of the economy, and particularly with invisible exports. The Committee on Invisible Exports defines them as:
"The earnings (whether foreign currency or sterling) from the provision of services to people living abroad".
They see them as in direct contrast to visible earnings which are derived from "the sale of physical goods abroad." That committee go on to say:
"Either they are the interest, profit or dividends earned by individuals here from investment in foreign enterprises, or they are money received from foreigners in return for the provision of services".
I leave that simple definition; its detail will be taken up by various speakers in the next couple of hours. Artistic tours, shipping, accounting advice, consultancy fees, insurance and capital borrowings could all come into this debate.
To lift out but one example, United Kingdom ships are among the country's biggest invisible earners. The General Council of British Shipping tells me that British ships grossed over £2½ billion in 1977. Their contribution to the balance of payments in net direct foreign exchange earnings was over £1 billion. In addition, they accounted for gross import savings of £497 million. Furthermore, British shipping companies employed about 76,000 United Kingdom nationals afloat and, directly or indirectly, provided employment for many thousands ashore at the end of 1978. To add to that one general fact, the United Kingdom's share of world invisibles brought in 23,240 million dollars in 1976. Let us light the gloom, my Lords. Only the mighty United States could top that, but the exalted economies of West Germany and Japan, artificially stimulated, trailed behind us.
The one invisible earner I intend to detail is my particular interest, tourism. It pleases me very much that my noble friend Lord Ponsonhy of Shulbrede will be speaking from the Opposition Front Bench. He is momentarily away from us but no doubt he is refreshing his notes.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: I am not, my Lords.
Lord PARRY: I apologise to my noble friend.
Lord ELWYN-JONES: My noble friend does not need refreshing.
Lord PARRY: My noble friend and I once shared the glories of responding to the loyal Address. I believe both of us express similar loyalty to national wellbeing this afternoon. In this connection, perhaps I might return to Herman Kahn:
"It seems reasonable to assume that by the end of the century tourism will be one of the largest industries in the world, if not the largest".
Kahn forecast an increase by 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. a year until about the year 2000. Despite the difficulties I named earlier, total exports from Britain rose over the decade 1968 to 1978. Our total exports in 1968 were valued at £10 billion; in 1976 they were valued at £39 billion; in 1968 we earned invisibly nearly £4 billion; and by 1976 that had grown to £14 The real success story, then, is that tourism, catering for overseas visitors coming to this country, increased its share of the total export market. In 1968 the tourism industry earned us £383 million, and by 1978 that figure had multiplied more than eight times; we earned £3 billion in that year from foreign visitors. Tourism represented 14 per cent. of all invisibles and accounted for 4·7 per cent. of all exports.
Government—not this Administration because they are too young, but I refer to previous Governments—can take credit for that. They will share it with the effects of a falling pound and particular national attractions like Jubilee Year, but there is direct political credit to he drawn. Development grants or tourism projects, in the last eight years of that decade, created new jobs at a cost to the taxpayer which, in today's prices, averaged out at between £2,000 and £4,000, which is very much cheaper than the cost of creating jobs in other sectors.
The Government spokesman, who is Lord-in-Waiting to the Queen, may wish to comment on the slow growth of interest—outside the trade, which is very conscious of it, and of the educational institutions, which are increasingly so—in what I would call the technology of

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tourism. He will have been impressed. as I have been, with the internationally acclaimed professionalism and marketing know-how of our great hotel groups. Throughout the industry, and the tourism organisations that serve it, there is great expertise in promoting tourism. All other industries could not claim as much. Would it be unkind to say that some have moaned about the draining away of their strength when a trade mission in the sunshine selling Great Britain harder might have improved their general health?
I would claim that the overseas managers of British service industry outlets and the professionals who promote British tourism in other countries are the true trade ambassadors of this nation today. They know there is no point in trying to sell Britain as a destination for foreign travellers if, as emissaries, they spend their off-duty time emphasising or even misinterpreting Britain's national problems. It is an important point, insufficiently acknowledged, that some industries might have saved themselves had they developed the techniques now being employed selling tourism. Some hurt themselves by sending inexperienced representatives overseas where they dwelt as much on the "terrible difficulties at home" as they did on promoting the product. At one stage friends of mine in America wondered whether they should send my family food parcels.
I do not underestimate the reality of the difficulties nor minimise the effects of holiday-time airport strikes on the morale of the travelling public, but as the world fuel crisis illustrates—and others in this debate will highlight its effects—problems are not unique to Britain. Those that we represent as epidemic at home are in fact endemic to a changing industrial pattern at home and abroad. Creating job opportunities through the service sector will be as attractive to a Government facing rising unemployment as it is to me. Investment in tourism, for example, has the great benefit of creating new strength in the local community. It involves skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. It adds, too, a supplementary income for those whom it employs part-time. In rural areas, it is often the only source, within distance, of such chances.
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In the recent past we have seen the great traditional employers pay off men and women. Service trades could not compete with the mass employers, but steel is ailing in Britain and coal is no longer king, even in Wales, though OPEC oil price increases already offer a stimulant to our aging monarch. In the United Kingdom, the percentage of people employed in the manufacturing utilities and in mining went down from 45 to 35 per cent. between 1956 and 1973, while the percentage employed mainly in services went up from 45 to 62 per cent. It used to anger me that, during the days of the depression and afterwards, it was the plight of the urban worker—because it was expressed in mass numbers—that excited greater sympathy. Those of us who grew up in the rural extremities of Britain knew the corrosive degradation of living standards, the outward migration of youth and talent, the absence of jobs, even "in service", for women, and hardly ever could the rural wife supplement family income as her city sisters did.
Slowly but surely tourism has been growing into that gap. Indeed, it has become a positive benefit for an area to have missed out on the Industrial Revolution. Virgin places are at a premium in our crowded world. Even where the Industrial Revolution, before it learned social conscience, did its foul worst, we now have the startling growth of industrial archaeology and "ethnic roots" tourism as a phenomenon attracting visitors and encouraging the rebirth of despoiled places. It seems that history is, even yet, a better guide than economics. Britain must grasp the opportunities for development. It must stop mourning some aspects of its past—those that will never return—and extol and develop those that will form a part of the future. The Hudson Institute's study is again relevant:
"People seem to have an almost insatiable desire to travel, and for increasing numbers the money and the time available for travel have been growing, while the facilities for travel have become more convenient and less expensive".
London, though Londoners may not believe it, needs to be planning more hotels. I would insert at this point, at the request of somebody else in this House, that the pricing of hotel accommodation in London is crucial to the whole tourism industry in Great Britain, and if price rises seem in London to be intolerably

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high, the effect on travellers through London as the gateway to our nation will be great. Strategically-placed hotels are needed in the provinces, too—the better to manage the flow of tourist traffic.
The very success of our airline operators in building up traffic out of Britain is being aided by our grudging summer, but British tourist spending overseas is a debit on our national account. Last year stimulation of the home market effected a tourism credit balance of trade. There has of late been a sucking-in of imports to Britain; and it is as essential to promote our internal holiday market as it is to attract overseas visitors.
Do we appreciate the import-saving significance of holidays spent in Britain by our own people? If we do not, we shall fail to understand the significance of the Canadian Government's spending on a massive "See Canada First" campaign. I do not want to anticipate what the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, will say, but London—his city—is not just a gateway to the provinces, as I have already indicated, but is one of the major reasons why people visit them. Kahn anticipates some of the problems that this implies. He says:
"Being host to hordes of tourists is not necessarily a pleasant way to facilitate economic development. But for those who wish to develop rapidly, or even slowly, many sacrifices may be required, of which playing host to tourists could be one of the least onerous".
As we drove into London today through the main lane of traffic we did not come across a single notice saying, "Keep tourists out of London", or "out of Britain", although this has had heavy emphasis in the media. But in every pane of glass in every window I read, "Save London—Ban the Juggernauts." This City's arterial lines are being choked by massive lorries passing through.
Tourism in particular among the other service trades must invest in advertising and promotion at home and overseas. The British Tourist Authority is the conduit for overseas marketing. The national boards in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and indeed in the Irish Republic, increasingly see mutual advantage in encouraging the flow of nationals within the United Kingdom. But there must be no lessening of initiative and effort.
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Increased marketing budgeting is essential if we are to apply our residual expertise—developed to meet the demands of our own industrial revolution—to servicing all the emerging opportunities growing out of heavy industrial expansion elsewhere. Also essential is the increasing of funds for development projects to promote tourism growth and tourism attractions, as the Act allows.
Given a fair wind, and better weather than we have had of late, we might create a quarter of a million additional jobs in tourism in the next decade and double the spending by our overseas guests in British shops, buying British goods, made by British workers. Soon those countries of the world of which we spoke recently and patronisingly as "emerging nations" and "under-privileged areas" will add to the world flow of travellers. As the Germans are doing now and as the Japanese do—more particularly in continental Europe—other newly leisured peoples will come on paid holidays. Theirs will be the strong currency then. We must win our share of their interest and be ready to service it.
I have a suspicion that the noble Lord who will reply to the debate understands, and perhaps even shares, my enthusiasm. I look forward to his assurances on tourism as on all the other services trade. My Lords, this debate is not about decline, decadence, and pessimism. It is about an alternative economic strategy for a still great Britain.
3.24 p.m.
Lord ROCHESTER: My Lords, I am sure that I speak for the whole House in saying how glad we are to welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Parry, and in thanking him for the way in which he has introduced this important debate. I share with him a love of that part of Dyfed—and I hope that those of your Lordships who are practised Welsh linguists will forgive my pronunciation—which used to be called Pembrokeshire. My wife's father was born and brought up there and we visit it every year without fail. I have little direct experience of the service sectors of industry, however they may be defined, but I am quite sure that the noble Lord, Lord Parry, is right to call our attention to the vital importance of those sectors to the health of our

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economy, not least because, as he pointed out, encouragement of tourism, for example, can create so many more job opportunities.
In the debate on unemployment last week the noble Lord, Lord Roberthall (whom I am glad to see in his place) reminded us that the causes of unemployment arise largely from our failure to adapt to change. In my experience successful adaptation to change involves building on strengths, rather than constantly analysing our weaknesses. I am a firm believer in the continuing importance of manufacturing industry for our economic health, particularly in exports; but as the noble Lord, Lord Parry, has pointed out, almost throughout the 19th and 20th centuries there has been a deficit in our visible trade. Indeed, I believe it is the case that since 1796 there have been only eight years in all when that was not so. We have prospered only because that deficit has been covered by exports of services and by profits on our overseas investments.
As the noble Lord also pointed out, so far as jobs are concerned, more particularly in the last 15 years, the employment of our people in manufacturing industry has declined as a proportion of total employment, while the proportion of people employed in the service sectors has increased; and we must see that it continues to do so. This shift in employment has resulted from a number of factors —from technological change, from rationalisation, from changes in demand, and particularly from changes in the structure of industry, as labour-intensive industries, such as textiles and clothing, have had to meet increased competition from countries with lower labour costs.
As Mr. Philip Sadler, principal of Ashridge Management College, pointed out in what I thought was an excellent article in The Times about a year ago, instead of seeking to obstruct the shift towards service sector employment, we should positively welcome it as being desirable on both economic and social grounds. It is desirable economically for at least two reasons. The elimination of overmanning and consequential improvement in productivity enables manufacturing industry to remain competitive abroad. Secondly, in the long run Britain will not be able to compete with developing
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countries in labour-intensive industries, and we shall have to learn to earn our living to a greater extent by concentrating on industries which involve advanced technology and on service industries. The shift in employment is desirable on social grounds because, I suggest, a reduced reliance on labour-intensive industries and processes will lead to an improvement in the general quality of working life in this country.
We hear much nowadays about the need to create more wealth to finance schools, hospitals, and other desirable social services, and I subscribe to it all wholeheartedly. But I believe it is sometimes forgotten that economic activity is concerned with the satisfaction of needs generally, and wealth surely consists of all those things for which a market exists or can be found. Thus our standard of living nowadays is a function of access to services such as holidays, entertainment, and sport, just as much as to goods; and for the benefit of our international trade that access must be made available to visitors from abroad to the greatest possible extent. Only yesterday, in the Financial Times, I came across a good example of a service, management training, which is being successfully marketed abroad—so much, incidentally, for the fallacy that British industrial management does not bear comparison with the very best in the eyes of the world.
The shedding of labour by manufacturing industry may involve redundancies, and it is not always possible to absorb production workers into service industries because of mismatched skills and because of differences in geographical location between service and manufacturing industries. Solutions to these problems lie largely in the field of Government policy, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, would recognise. Instead of trying to save jobs in declining industries, the Government should concentrate on retraining people for growth industries, including those in the service sector; on providing inducements for the relocation of service industries in regions of high unemployment; and on creating conditions which will encourage the development of small enterprises, including services, in innovative fields.
It is true that service activities such as advertising depend on manufacturing

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industry, but, equally, much of manufacturing industry exists only because of a demand for certain services. For example, the manufacture of passenger aircraft is dependent on the demand for travel and for tourism. Service industries can thus create wealth just as much as can manufacturing industry. They satisfy consumer demands; they produce profits, which can be taxed to help pay for social services, for defence, for overseas aid and so on; they provide a great deal of employment; and they enable us to earn substantial sums of foreign currency.
My Lords, sound national economic health involves building on strengths as well as eliminating weaknesses. We should certainly continue to do all we can to make our manufacturing industries more competitive, but we must also see to it that the lead we have in the service sector is maintained and strengthened. It is that objective, as I understand it, which the noble Lord, Lord Parry, has in introducing his Motion today, and I am glad to give it support from these Benches.
3.34 p.m.
Lord POLWARTH: My Lords, this debate has been opened and will be wound up by the Welsh. There will be a strong English contribution, need I say London contribution, towards the conclusion, I suspect, from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby; so perhaps I may be forgiven one word on behalf of Scotland before I move on to the main theme of my speech, which is of more general application. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Parry, has put this emphasis on tourism, and I should like to emphasise its vital importance to Scotland. This is not just its importance as a currency earner. It is a vital part of our economy. I am told that in one way or another it employs some 115,000 people in Scotland. It is particularly vital to the Highlands and Islands, where it is the largest single employer. That is an area where the other principal occupations are, by and large, declining in employment —agriculture, fishing and forestry —however healthy they may be in themselves.
So I should like to make a plea. I think it is likely—indeed, I believe it has been announced—that, among the
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necessary cuts in public expenditure, the grants and support for tourism are to be curtailed. I would make a plea for thought to be given to the way in which those cuts are applied, because I believe that when we look at London and the South-East area we see an enormous concentration of tourist activities; we see a concentration of the tourist-operating organisations of all kinds, transport and otherwise; and we cannot help seeing crowds of tourists—indeed, it strikes me that we are nearly submerged by them, almost to the very precints of this Palace, and certainly of Buckingham Palace. With no disrespect to those who are trying to further tourism in the South. I would make a plea that support is still needed in the outlying areas, whether of Scotland, Wales or the regions of England, because that is where the greatest scope for growth of tourism must remain. So, if the axe is to be applied—and I do not think we should plead for it not to be applied at all—let it be applied with due regard to sparing the trees with the greatest prospect of growth and those which, in the long run, will make the greatest contribution to the forest as a whole.
Having said that, I should like to move on to another subject altogether. I was sorry to be absent from your Lordships' House during the very interesting debate last week on the state of our economy. I can only plead that perhaps I was doing something which may have been contributing towards its well-being; namely, leading a City of London mission to the Province of Alberta in Western Canada under the auspices of that esoterically-named body to which Lord Parry referred, the Committee on Invisible Exports. What were we doing there as a group, some dozen of us, that individual members could not have been doing in their ordinary course of business? We were a bunch of bankers and investment experts in general. I think the answer was that we were able to put across the message of the great range of financial services and skills concentrated here, mainly in the City of London but in other parts of the country, too—skills and experience which we can put at the disposal of any part of the world—and we were able to put that message across in one of the most dynamically-growing places in the Free World today.

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In four days we were able to give two full-scale presentations to leading business groups, one in Edmonton and one in Calgary; we spent a day in discussions with Ministers and officials of the Provincial Government and their agencies; we attended a seminar on the proposed Alaska gaspipeline—surely an opportunity, if it is built, for British enterprise by way of participation; we visited the vast tar sands deposits in Northern Alberta, on which I suspect that one day we shall be dependent, when North Sea oil begins to decline; we gave some 15 interviews in all to various branches of the media; and at the end we have invited back representatives of a wide variety of institutions so that they may see what we can offer on the ground and, very important, by way of opportunities to learn and be trained in financial and other skills—again, an overseas earner for us.
It is that kind of organised effort which makes an impact, and it is typical of missions regularly organised to different parts of the world with good growth prospects by the Commission on Invisible Exports. Those parts of the world need the sophisticated services which we can offer, and there is no doubt in my mind that these missions are increasing our earnings overseas. What is more, they will lead to a fall-out in visible exports as well. For example, in Alberta there are already established branches of five British banks, and, with the shortly to come relaxation in Canada of controls on banking, I am sure that many more will soon be there. They will not only be earning from their own efforts; they will be making contracts, bringing opportunities for export, for joint venture and so on to the notice of their customers. So visible exports will again gain from this, too.
These missions are one activity of the Commission on Invisible Exports. From my experience it is a highly effective, tightly and economically run body in which the total staff is only six souls. It operates under the wing of the British Overseas Trade Board, and I am glad to say that that body is now under the chairmanship of a Member of your Lordships' House, the noble Earl, Lord Limerick. It does a fine job, too, making known widely the importance and achievements of the whole invisible sector and
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finding ways to make it more effective. I would be the last to belittle the importance of our visible exports: that is to say, those things which go through the Customs and can be felt and seen. The fact is in the past 16 years only once was our visible trade balance—the balance of physical exports and imports—in net surplus. It was left to the invisibles to counter this deficit and also offset the net outflow of Government spending overseas, the inevitable debt servicing, defence expenditure and the many other things on which we have to spend overseas.
As a result of the invisibles, an overall surplus on current account resulted in eight out of the 16 years, which was not a bad effort. There are a number of very interesting facts about the invisibles. We are the second biggest earner on invisible account in the private sector in the whole world, second only to the United States. The invisibles account for nearly one-third of the country's whole foreign earnings, and they are equivalent to nearly half our whole bill for imported goods. Within those figures, the city sector, banking, insurance and so on—and I give insurance pride of place with much the largest contribution; practically half of it—accounts for something like 40 per cent. of all invisible private earnings. The range is, however, as we have heard already, quite considerably wider, and other noble Lords will be talking about other aspects of it. Such things as Scottish banks in a syndicated Eurodollar loan to a South American country; a Liverpool broker dealing in cotton; a Southampton shipping agent filling up documents; a contractor in Manchester designing and building a project in the Middle East; and of course a multitude of individuals in the tourist industry about which we have already heard. All of these are playing a part in our invisible trade.
Those of us involved in it—and I should declare my interest as a part-time banker—are grateful for the support of successive Governments. There has been no political aspect to this in the party sense whatever. We ask for that support to continue. I am glad that we have had a recent relaxation in exchange controls; this will encourage greater investment overseas and consequently greater returns. I hope these only presage more to come. I hope that the Government

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will help to make clear some slight obscurities about the figures. There are some problems over separating the Government and the private sector figures in the monthly basis. That has not yet been achieved, I hope it may become possible. I hope also that they will explain publicly why there has been some levelling off and decrease in the net surplus in the past three years. It is due mainly to two things: on the Government side, there has been a substantial increase in our payments to the European Community. On the private side, paradoxically there is the impact of North Sea oil. Of course it is of substantial benefit to our visible exports and our saving on imports; but what is not so often realised is that there is an opposite effect. We have to pay for the technical services we have had to import and increasingly in dividends and interest on the investment made here from overseas, without which investment, let us face it, we could not have developed the North Sea.
Apart from that, perhaps I could end with one warning note: as the European Community develops, so does the pressure —and we all know it in your Lordships' House—to harmonise institutions within it, sometimes one feels for the sake of harmonisation alone, and the City and financial institutions are no exception. Undoubtedly there is scope and need for a greater degree of common practice, but this process must be watched. One reason for the development of the City of London as such a great international financial centre has been the degree of self-regulation afforded to the different institutions rather than a straitjacket of statutory control.
In general, the City has been ridden on a light rein, and in general it has responded responsibly and well. That has been one of the reasons for its success internationally. With only some 15 per cent. of our net invisibles arising from the European Community it would be a disaster if we were to be subjected to unduly restrictive regulations for regulations' sake to the detriment of the remaining 85 per cent. of our invisible trade. Where harmonisation is needed, rather let our Government give a strong lead—and I hope they will—to see that it is towards our model of institutions, based as they are on such long, great and wide experience. All we ask for as invisible exporters
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is the Government's interest, support and help in matters such as these. I am sure that we shall continue to increase our earnings from abroad, not only by brawn but by brain, and so contribute to that much needed improvement in our country's health.

SOUTHALL INQUIRY: POLICE COMMISSIONER'S REPORT
3.47 p.m.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The Statement is as follows:
"I should like to make a Statement to the House on the events which occurred at Southall on 22nd and 23rd April 1979. I have now received and considered the report from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that my predecessor requested.
"That report did not and could not deal with the inquiry being conducted by Commander Cass into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Blair Peach. His investigation is continuing and the outcome will be submitted to the coroner and to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Nor did the commissioner's report deal with individual complaints against the police. These will be dealt with in accordance with the statutory procedure; that includes a reference to the Police Complaints Board which may, if it thinks fit, make to me a special report on any matters which by reason of their gravity should be brought to my attention.
"I have already placed in the Library of the House a factual account of the disturbances. My Statement will deal with the conclusions of the commissioner's report, and the lessons to be drawn from the incident.
"Mr. Speaker, there were two reasons for expecting violence on this occasion. The first was the National Front's decision to hold a meeting in

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Southall on 23rd April. It is the commissioner's view that, from the moment the National Front was given permission to hold an election meeting at Southall town hall, there was a real threat of serious public disorder. Many of those whom the commissioner subsequently interviewed argued that the meeting should not have been allowed to take place. But the law does not allow election or other meetings to be banned on public order or any other grounds, nor does it permit a local authority any discretion in making premises available for election meetings on the grounds that the views likely to be expressed are offensive. The second reason was divisions within the Asian community in Southall. Despite the deep apprehension of the local Asian community, there were, in the days preceding the disturbances, useful and continuing discussions between the police and community leaders. Regrettably, however, the preparations for opposition to the National Front meeting revealed a growing difference of view between the young Asians and their elders, which as events turned out, was easily exploited by extremist elements, not all of them from Southall, some of whom seemed determined to bring about a confrontation with the police.
"I should like to deal with the main criticisms levelled against the strategy and tactics of the police. First, it is said that there were too many police on duty. The commissioner rejects this. I share his view. It is difficult to conceive that any number significantly less than the 2,750 deployed could have handled the situation better. Information available to the police in advance indicated that there might be several thousand demonstrators, and indeed some 3,000 are estimated to have taken part. Moreover, it has been and will remain the commissioner's policy, which I fully support, that defensive containment by numbers of police on foot is more likely to be successful, and is certainly more within our traditions, than deliberate, offensive tactics by smaller groups equipped in the style of some foreign police forces.
"Second, it is said that the Special Patrol Group should not have been
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deployed at Southall. The commissioner does not accept this. Nor do I. They formed only part, and that a very small part, of the deployment at Southall. As the commissioner made clear in his recent annual report, the Special Patrol Group is used on a wide variety of tasks, including crime and traffic, as well as public order. Indeed, most of their arrests in 1978 were crime arrests. A mobile reserve has considerable tactical value, but its work needs to be kept under review and the commissioner has asked the deputy commissioner to conduct an examination of the group.
"The commissioner has told me of his proposals for restoring and improving relations between the police and the local community in Southall. He will also be making renewed efforts to attract more Asians from the area as regular or special constables. He intends to review his whole community relations organisation and, where necessary, will allocate further resources to it.
"The events in Southall inevitably raise questions about the adequacy of the law in relation to public order. I have already indicated to the House that I wish to consider whether changes in the law are required. The Government are, therefore, undertaking a review of the Public Order Act 1936 and related legislation. I shall welcome the views of Members of this House and of interested organisations. On any matters touching the Representation of the People Act 1949, there will be consultation with the parties in the normal way.
"In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to emphasise certain general points. The Government firmly set their face against extremist organisations, whether to the left or right, who seek to divide society and exploit racial tension. All who live in this country are equal before the law and should be treated as such. Anyone, private citizen or policeman, who breaks the law should be brought before the courts and, if found guilty, properly punished. If the police find it impossible to maintain public order under the existing law, then it is for Parliament to decide whether and how a new balance has to be struck.

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"But whatever the law may be, it is the duty of the police to uphold and enforce it impartially. That is what they were trying to do in Southall in very difficult circumstances. In my view no police force in the world does it better. We ask much of our police, Mr. Speaker, in carrying out the duty which we lay upon them; I believe that we in this House owe them a reciprocal duty of wholehearted support".
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary.
3.53 p.m.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the entire House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for repeating the Statement being made in another place by his right honourable friend the Home Secretary. I noticed that the inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Blair Peach is being conducted by Commander Cass. I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, when the report will be available and, when it is, whether it will be made available to the public.
Dealing with complaints against the police, which I gather from the Statement will be dealt with by the Police Complaints Board, I am a little perturbed that in the Statement it says that the commissioner, if he thinks fit, may make a special report to the Home Secretary. I should have thought it was incumbent, if not a requirement in the sense of regulations, upon the Commissioner of Police to let the Home Secretary know the matters which the Police Complaints Board has had to deal with and what conclusions they come to. I do not think it is good enough. I submit it would be intolerable if the Home Secretary were not informed of the outcome of Police Complaints Board investigations.
What happened on the 22nd/23rd April is a matter of very grave public concern, and I am glad that the Government recognise that the time has come to review the Public Order Act 1936. In view of the limitations of the Representation of the People Act—it was made very clear in the Statement that this particular meeting at the town hall could not be prevented because it was during the election period—
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it is essential that the Representation of the People Act should also be reviewed in the light of what happened on that particular occasion. I gather from the Statement that the commissioner recognised that there would be a very real threat to public order if the meeting took place; and from the moment the National Front was given permission to hold an election meeting in the town hall the commissioner's view was obviously the right one.
As your Lordships will know, the occasion resulted in Blair Peach being killed, but we are not considering that matter this afternoon. However, it raises an important question of whether National Front marches should be allowed to continue. We have over the years seen many of them, and they are a prescription for disorder because their presence is an affront and a provocation to certain minority groups whom we have the duty to protect. Only last Sunday the National Front marched as a protest against the admission of the Vietnamese into this country. I understand that many people —this was reported in the Press—find the use of scores of Union Jacks on these occasions both objectionable and offensive, when they are not even dipped on passing the Cenotaph.
I think one has to recognise that they do not march in the cause of freedom but in defiance of law and order. I think we all welcome the proposals of the commissioner, whom I believe to be seriously desirous of restoring and improving the relations between the police and the local community in Southall. If I say that these have never been at a lower ebb, I do not mean that by way of criticism. I say it merely because I think we would all pay tribute to the commissioner for his resolve in doing something to establish a better relationship between the police and the Southall community.
3.59 p.m.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends I should like to thank the Minister for repeating this Statement made in another place. May I also ask him whether or not he thinks it is intolerable that as many as 2,750 policemen should have been pinned down in dealing with an operation of this kind by a few racists, and that race relations in Southall, in particular between the police and the

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Asian community, should be subjected to the enormous strains that meetings of this kind place on them? May I echo the call which was made by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, that we should seriously consider now whether marches of this kind by the National Front through areas in which large numbers of people of ethnic minorities live should continue to be allowed, or whether this is not in conflict with the very principles of freedom, which these people are seeking to destroy.
May we welcome the review of the Public Order Act, which the noble Lord has announced, and which is obviously necessary. However, am I not right in thinking that this review is likely to take a very considerable while, in view of the large number of consultations that will be necessary with the police and the political parties in connection with the Representation of the People Act and so on? Does the Minister not consider that, in the meanwhile, it is desirable that we should give some guidance to local authorities on how to treat applications from the National Front to use facilities owned by them on similar occasions in the future?
In this connection, is the Minister aware that both Brent and the ILEA refused to grant facilities to the National Front during the recent election, and that in a court case which was subsequently brought by the National Front against Brent Council that authority won? Therefore, was not the leader of the Ealing Council, Councillor Mrs. Howard, wrong when she said that Ealing Council had no power to stop these meetings when that view was expressed to her by the Ealing Community Relations Council on 11th April?
Secondly, while we obviously require time to study the factual account which the noble Lord has placed in the Library, is he aware that there are several discrepancies between this account and that which was issued by the Ealing Community Relations Council? For example, when the police entered certain premises in the area at about 6.15 p.m. and made something like 60 arrests there, a doctor who was on the premises was beaten over the head by the police with truncheons and subsequently required four stitches in her head.
Is it not essential that we should get to the bottom of all the matters which
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occurred during the course of this demonstration? Therefore, why did the Government decide not to deal with this matter in the same way as the Red Lion Square disturbances were treated in 1974? Can the noble Lord say whether there are any differences between this case and that of Red Lion Square, where it will be remembered that one of the participants was killed and the events were inquired into thoroughly—and, if I may say so, with very great value to the community—by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman? Should not a judicial inquiry of this kind be appointed by the Government to inquire into the disturbances which took place in Southall?
4.3 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, if I may at this stage reply to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, I am grateful for what he said, and the answers that I have to the questions which he has put to me are that I am sure that Commander Cass will make his report as quickly as possible. The report will go to the coroner and to the Director of Public Prosecutions. But I am sure the noble Lord will agree with me that it would not be right for my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to interfere with that process.
With respect to the noble Lord, I do not think he put quite the right interpretation on the beginning of the Statement. The reference to the report, which the noble Lord regarded as a report which could be given to my right honourable friend by the Commissioner of the Metropolis, is in fact a reference to the fact that all complaints other than those referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions will be referred to and reviewed by the Police Complaints Board, as will the action taken on them. If, having reviewed those complaints, the Board judge that there are aspects of the affair which should be drawn to my right honourable friend's attention, it is open to the Board to make a special report to my right honourable friend under Section 8 of the Police Act 1976.
The noble Lord also referred, as did the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, to the review of the Public Order Act. Yes, if I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, although it will be a review starting off originally in the Home Office,

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clearly it will take some time. The reference of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, to the need to look at the Representation of the People Act is a view shared by my right honourable friend, but of course this will be a matter for the political parties.
Finally, may I answer the question which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked me. He made two particular points. First, he referred specifically, if I remember rightly, to the London Borough of Brent—
Lord AVEBURY: and the ILEA.
Lord BELSTEAD: But I will reply to him on the London Borough of Brent. As I understand it, the facts are that during the parliamentary election campaign the borough of Brent declined to make a room available for the use of the National Front. The National Front then sought redress in the High Court and a direction that a room should be made available. As in other cases, the judge declined to consider the case in the time available. The noble Lord did not say that; he said that in fact one of the sides to the case won. The judge did not rule, as implied in Press reports, in favour of the Council's decision. The National Front have not pursued any of the cases that they have brought to the point where such an authoritative ruling can be obtained. It is in those circumstances that I think it is wise—and I think the House would agree that it is wise—to review the Public Order Act.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, may I say that I do not think I misunderstood what the noble Lord said in the Statement. I may have expressed myself rather badly. But as I understood the noble Lord in his reply to me, he said that it is up to the Police Complaints Board to decide, if it thinks fit, to make a special report on these matters. That rather suggests that they have discretion either to do so or not to do so. The point I was trying to make was that I think they ought to.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, this is enshrined in legislation which was passed by a Government of which the noble Lord was a popular and very hard-
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working member. I am not making a political point, but this is enshrined in legislation. More seriously, the Police Complaints Board of course take their responsibilities exceedingly seriously, and I am sure that if they feel it is necessary to do this, the report will be made.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, can the noble Lord deal with the point I made about a judicial inquiry, and whether or not there were any differences whatsoever between the circumstances of this episode and those of the Red Lion Square demonstration, which was the subject of a public inquiry by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord reminded me of that. I must say that my right honourable friend agrees with the views which were clearly expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Scarman, that public inquiries should be used most sparingly and that they are no substitute for an effective complaints procedure, or indeed for the courts. That complaints procedure now exists and all the correct steps have been put into effect and are, at this moment, in effect. Therefore, there is no need for a public inquiry.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, may I, as one who was involved at the time of the Mosley difficulties in the East End of London, ask the noble Lord whether the lesson has not yet been learned of what should be and what should not be allowed in the interests of freedom? There are many people who are considerably perturbed by the fact that, among those who are in the National Front at present, are people who were actually in the Mosley movement when he was perpetrating some of the most serious actions against liberty, when they were against the policy of the Government altogether and when they were pro-Nazi, as obviously the National Front is at present. Does the noble Lord agree that it is so serious a matter that it ought to be dealt with as quickly as possible?
Perhaps I ought to declare an interest. I happen to be of the Jewish persuasion. I know exactly what has happened. I have followed this matter, even to the extent of seeing in South Africa one of the people who is now a leader of the National

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Front Party perpetrating similar actions and promoting similar suggestions to those which the Mosley people were presenting then. If I may so with respect, I question whether our idea of liberty of speech and liberty of holding meetings—when it affects the question as to whether, when they hold meetings, they are in fact attacking both liberty of speech and the very ideals for which we stand—should be tolerated at all.
Lord DERWENT: My Lords, is not the House getting rather out of order? This is not a debate. The House seems to forget that fact.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, if I may keep short my reply to the noble Lord, Lord Janner, in view of the advice of my noble friend, the noble Lord opposite referred to the events of the 1930s. The fact is that the Public Order Act 1936 provides powers only to ban marches and processions, and the chief officer of police can only apply for such a ban when he believes that this is the only way in which serious public disorder can be prevented. This matter is being looked at in the review of legislation which has been announced in the Statement. So far as amendment of the Representation of the People Act is concerned, this, as I have said, is a matter for discussion between the political parties.
Lord HUNT: My Lords, although it may seem to be a matter of detail, in his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, the Minister made no mention of the noble Lord's reference to the use, or the mis-use, of the Union flag by a party which is totally unrepresentative of any constituent part of the Union. In view of the very strong feelings which are held about this abuse, not only in this House but outside it, could the Minister give the House an assurance that this particular point will be looked at very carefully in the review of the Public Order Act? I believe that there is a good precedent for this in the City of Glasgow. At certain football matches, when matches of a national or international character are taking place, the Union flag and the Irish flag are not allowed to be used. That is the city from which the present Commissioner of Police came. He was the deputy chief constable of Glasgow.
Lord HYLTON: My Lords, may I put one further, brief question. Could my noble friend, and those who will be reviewing the law, consider whether a modernised version of the old 1714 Riot Act would be of great help in the control of the kind of disturbances which we have been experiencing?
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, if I may reply to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend Lord Hylton, in the Statement my right honourable friend in another place said:
"I shall welcome the views of Members of this House and of interested organisations".
I assure the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and my noble friend, that the remarks which they have passed, and any other remarks which your Lordships have given and may give in the future, will be treated in exactly the same way as the views of honourable and right honourable Members in another place.
Lord PARGITER: My Lords, could I ask the Minister—
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, we really must draw these questions to a close. The current practice in your Lordships' House is that there should be questions for information on a Statement and that they should be brief.
Lord PARGITER: My Lords, I wish to ask a question in connection with the Statement. It relates to the fact that Ealing Borough Council were, presumably, not able to prevent the meeting. In view of the fact that it was well known to the police that Southall town hall is, from a communications point of view, practically the nerve centre of Southall, could not the police have made representations to Ealing that the meeting should be transferred to a point where it could have been more easily contained and dealt with, possibly with less damage? The very fact that the police drafted in so many reinforcements shows that they must have known what was the situation with regard to that particular point in Southall, which I happen to know very well indeed. I should have thought that Ealing Borough Council could have been advised to transfer the meeting to another point, even if they were not able to prevent it from taking place.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, discussions were held before the day in question, but the power which the noble Lord hopes can be ascribed to the police does not exist, and it would not have been possible for the police to do what the noble Lord wishes they had done.

SERVICE INDUSTRIES AND THE ECONOMY
4.15 p.m.
Debate resumed.
Lord LEONARD: My Lords, the purpose of our debate is to call attention to the vital importance of the service sectors of British industry to the health of the economy. We have heard some criticism today. I shall begin my speech by repeating what a senator of the Upper House in the United States once said. He made the mistake of describing himself as a self-made man. He paid for that mistake when the following speaker told the Senate that he had also shown that he worshipped his creator. I shall not run that risk this afternoon! However, I shall have something to say about my own experience in British industry and about the changes and chances that not only brought me to your Lordships' House but also gave me the lifelong satisfaction of participating in this nation's industry, and in developing an industrial enterprise that has made, and is still making, a small but positive contribution to the national economy and to its international balance of payments.
Before I follow up the details, I should like to do two things. First, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Parry for having set down this Motion for debate today. I should also like to point out that my speech in this debate is, in a very real sense, my maiden speech. Having had the signal honour of joining your Lordships with a seat on the then Government Front Bench, I had to accept, as I gladly did, the restrictions that went with it. Today, for the first time, I speak to my own brief. Frankly, I liked it better where I used to be. Both the briefing and the view of this House that I had from that side, suited me quite nicely! But finding myself where I am today, I shall endeavour to do my best.
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It pleases me to be able to say from this position, as a relatively free member of this House, how deeply I appreciated the exceptionally great help and guidance —might I say in my ageing immaturity—from the then Government leader, my noble friend Lord Peart, and, if she will allow me to say so, in particular from my noble friend Lady Llewelyn-Davies, together with her ministerial colleagues. Nor, I think, will this well-mannered House consider it presumptuous on my part if I thank those noble Lords, now sitting opposite, though no longer in Opposition, who, with countless others on my own side, worthy of government but not governing, also made me welcome.
I have heard today that the Welsh are dominant in this debate. Well, I shall have a few things to say about that. I am a landed immigrant. It was only 40 years ago, as a grown man, that I arrived in Britain. My own country, the socially and politically divided Ireland, could find no work for me. It had given me a precious heritage and a precious apprenticeship, but it could not, from its weakened industrial and economic base, ensure me a job, although I am pleased to say that that situation appears to have improved since I left.
As a worker skilled with hand and brain and trained to engineering at the
work bench, I came here determined to work. In a sense, my story is the story of
Ireland down the centuries. It explains some of the awful complexities that tear Ireland apart to this day. However, it has a place in this afternoon's debate only because it is an illustration of what happens when a socio-political economic system becomes decadent—where, although some wealth might accumulate, men still decay.
Many of the so-called problems—ethnic, racial and religious disharmony, and they are tragically real problems and I do not diminish them—would never have emerged at all as problems if the economy, the industry of the native land, could have geared itself to keep its people at work with the hope of providing them and those whom they loved with food, clothing, shelter and the leisure to develop as human beings. To achieve those things I came to England. I found work in the aircraft industry, which was then artificially stimulated by the demands of war.

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Your Lordships know how much that industry contributed to the saving of this great nation in the years that followed. I had a tiny hand in that, first in Liverpool and later in my adopted city of Cardiff, where there is a Welsh tinge, after all. I was also saved by heavy and light industrial expansion.
Over the years my role changed. I left the work bench, although only very gradually. Seeing changes taking place in the industry that I served, I found myself increasingly forced to play a different part in those changes. I became—although once I no more dreamed that I should ever apply the word than that I should be speaking here as a Member of this ancient House—an entrepreneur. My own business emerged from change and grew because I and those who worked for me saw that the only hope for the future lay not in trying to compete with the overgrown giants of heavy industry, who were themselves (although they did not know it) as endangered a species as the brontosaurus, but in specialising in those skills for which we were uniquely adapted and which in any case the giants did not have an interest in acquiring. We saw a living in the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table and as the major firms, failing to accept the lessons of history, paid off men, we took them on. The living was secure—it was even comfortable. I should say that the presence of representatives from the Treasury and my natural modesty as an Irishman prevent me from using the word "rich".
My main activities were the building of small furnaces and service to the larger industries—the manufacture of chemical plant for the larger industries; the servicing, which, in industry, is as important as the service industries of banking, shipping, tourism, although they are all important too. But the servicing in the engineering world is a means by which we in small and medium-sized businesses serve a purpose to industry, and I feel that the more of these small industries that are allowed to prosper in Great Britain, the better it will be for Britain.
During that time, the once famous and aggressively dominant Cardiff steel industry closed down; its workers became redundant. They had drawn their
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awards and only a massive and in some ways artificial crisis aid programme by the last Government—which I hope the Minister can assure us will be promoted by this Government—averted disaster. The noble Lord, Lord Parry, is right. In general we failed to accept the real truth of the decline of our heavy industry. We wrung our hands as it weakened, we tried to revive it as it died, but an industrial revolution like any other revolution is by its very definition a transitory thing; it is only a more radical stage of evolution. Britain's heavy industrial revolution was bound to end; the forces and energies that it released were bound to move elsewhere. Remember, though, that our light industrial contribution has been inmense and the world has benefited from it. I am not referring to the manufacture of polka dot lampshades, although they also have their place in industry.
How quickly some of the emerging countries have grasped those lessons that we failed to learn. What a salutary thing it is, as we have heard today, that Korea could become the first industrial economy based on the silicon chip. From now on Britain must service the industrial revolutions of others. Its future lies in the service industries and their invisible exports—banking, shipping, insurance, tourism and the services that engineering can apply to the larger organisations. It would be foolish of course to assume that heavy industry will totally disappear. It will not. Certain spheres will continue but many will be taken over by new world areas. Our light industry and small businesses, given the confidence of Government policies by taxation and other fiscal means that stimulate rather than burden it, has a mighty contribution yet to make to the high technology of the earth, where I consider we in Britain still hold a world lead.
Nowhere on that earth is there a self-made man. We might have lost our confidence these days about who created us and for what purpose, but we are creatures, none the less; we either adapt to our environment, accommodating ourselves within it, or measure up to the best in ourselves by dominating and taming it and that is what competing political ideologies should be about. In this apolitical debate let me finish by saying that I make my contribution as a transi-

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tory creature who will be eternally grateful for the chances and changes that his years of living in the United Kingdom have brought him.
4.27 p.m.
Viscount MONTGOMERY of ALA-MEIN: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Parry, for introducing this subject this afternoon. Unfortunately I am unable to match his high flow of oratory, nor do I have any command of the musical Welsh words with which he is so familiar. It is difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Leonard, although we do share something in common, in that we are both sons of Ireland. I do not propose to commiserate with him that he is no longer on the Front Bench: it seems to me that he has great knowledge, particularly of the manufacturing industries, and is quite capable of doing his own homework, as he has shown us so capably this afternoon.
I earn my living entirely in the service sector but I propose to speak about the services of others whom I admire and respect and, in that sense, I want to take up some points already made by my noble friend Lord Polwarth concerning the importance of invisible earnings in our overseas trade figures. These arise from a variety of activities and it is of some significance that net private invisibles produced a surplus in 1978 of over £4,000 million. One major element is the interest, profit and dividends from our overseas investments. This has not grown very much in recent years, partly because of exchange control restrictions and limitations, and I strongly commend to Her Majesty's Government that the sound utilisation of the foreign exchange which will be made available from the proceeds of North Sea oil, should enable us to increase our direct investments overseas and therefore subsequently increase our overseas earnings.
Contrary to what is normally thought, the creation of overseas companies does not remove jobs from the British domestic scene; it frequently increases them, since the overseas subsidiaries require supplies of components and equipment which are invariably co-ordinated through the parent company. I could produce many examples of where direct visible exports have grown following the establishment of overseas operations. In fact, the noble
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Lord, Lord Parry, mentioned a very good example in the motor industry. The classic case is that in Brazil, where we would have been in a predominant position 15 years ago if we had taken advantage of what was on offer and not left it to our European competitors.
Many other major sources of invisible earnings have been mentioned, such as tourism, mentioned by most speakers, and this will undoubtedly be taken up by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby; shipping and aviation; and the multiplicity of services provided within the City of London, such as insurance, banking, commodity trading and all forms of brokerage. Like the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, I should like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the Committee on Invisible Exports, which has done an enormous amount of work in trying to clarify what exactly invisible exports are, how they work, and also in interpreting the statistics on trade which are published monthly by Her Majesty's Government and are often the subject of a great deal of confusion and arguments.
Among the many activities of the Committee on Invisible Exports has been that of the promotion of financial services available in the City of London. They have done this in many ways, not the least of which has been the organisation of seminars in emerging overseas financial centres, particularly in the developing world such as South-East Asia and Latin America. My noble friend Lord Polwarth mentioned that he had recently been to one in a rather more sophisticated area, but I think they have been particularly significant in the less sophisticated areas. The reason why these promotions have been so successful is that they have been very well run by the Committee, have had great impact, and have created an immediate demand for increased trade. Not only do these overseas promotions open up new opportunity areas, but they also strengthen existing business links with the City of London by creating an atmosphere of confidence in the variety of financial services which are available. By the same token, it is commendable that, despite all the problems that have surrounded sterling in recent years, London has remained the world's prime financial centre. It is significant that there are more US banks in London than there are in New York.

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I should like to turn to a smaller industry which is often overlooked as a source of overseas earnings. I would mention the work done by British consultants operating in some 140 countries overseas. British consultants include consulting engineers, architects and planners, management and economic consultants, surveyors, agricultural economists, geologists and many other highly specialised skills. The British Consultants Bureau, of which most of the major consulting businesses operating overseas are members, estimate that fees earned from overseas are now running at nearly £500 million a year. This is a very significant sum when one remembers that little money leaves Britain to offset the incoming fees, as foreign consulting firms earn practically nothing in the United Kingdom. There is also no import content, which is not the case in most manufactured goods.
The success of British consultants overseas is partly due to their technical excellence but also due to their worldwide reputation for impartiality of advice. Despite this impartiality there is no doubt that if a British consultant is appointed for a major overseas project, he opens the door to the possible supply of hardware, raw materials and equipment. British project contractors always know that when a British consultant is advising they are assured of fair treatment provided that they can match the bids of overseas competitors.
It is always difficult to quantify these things, and it is undoubtedly a matter of some conjecture, but it is thought that the capital value of overseas projects, principally in the developing world, in which private firms of British consultants are now involved, could well be of the order of £50,000 million and might well be more. The point is that, whatever the figure, British consultants are not only earning fees but also opening the door for British contractors and equipment suppliers to participate in overseas business which will generate vastly increased direct exports in the future.
There are many other sources of invisible exports, and there is really no limit to the amount of British technological skills that can be marketed abroad. I have merely, for the purposes of this debate, selected some samples of what is actually
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happening today to illustrate the opportunities that are available for Britain overseas. The service industries are an area of our national life that really does not require legislation. In fact, it thrives better without Government interference or support. But it does need an atmosphere of confidence, stability and encouragement.
4.38 p.m.
Lord SELSDON: My Lords, I think one of the nice things about a debate of this kind is that it gives those of us on the Back-Benches here and opposite a chance to give advice to the Government, knowing full well that the Government, being a wise Government, will inevitably accept it! We have today a consensus of opinion. I would have been equally happy sitting on the Benches opposite because I agree with every single word noble Lords opposite have said. We are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Parry, for having once again raised the issue of service industries, but I think we are in danger of a bit of overkill. A few years ago nobody knew what invisible exports were. Now, because of the excellent work of the Committee on Invisible Exports and others, we are almost too well aware of what they are. They are brilliant; they are always in surplus. There has been a danger of decline. The point is made that when our restrictions on overseas investment were there we could forecast a decline in invisible earnings. But the Government have wisely relaxed the exchange control and hopefully that problem will be overcome.
I get the feeling that many people believe that service industries in the United Kingdom are a minority. We are still tainted with the Industrial Revolution and somehow a divisive element which believes that there is a blue-collar worker who manufactures and a white-collar worker who sits on his backside in an office all day and earns money for doing nothing. If we look at the statistics, which are often gently camouflaged to underemphasise the growth of the Civil Service, we find that a very high proportion of people indeed are employed in service industries. It is approximately half, according to the statistics in the Monthly Digest, of the total workforce of 22 million. But if we analyse the manufacturing industries as well we find that a

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very high proportion of people on the payroll are in fact performing a service function. My first question to my noble friend Lord Trefgarne is how many people are there in the United Kingdom actually working at making things on the shopfloor? There will, I hope, be a rustle of paper and he will come back with a fairly small figure. The noble Lord, Lord Peart, often used to pronounce on agriculture, saying that it was a major area, but failed to point out that under 400,000 are now working in it.
So, my first point as regards the contribution that service industries make to the health of the environment must concern employment. In that connection, I should like to give a gentle piece of advice to the Government: do not get caught up in the belief that by providing cheap finance and development grants to manufacturing industry in the United Kingdom you will increase employment. Manufacturing industry in this county is over-manned. For generations almost—not for years—we have become non-production orientated. A country like Korea is totally production orientated, as is a country like Italy. If we visited the factories of Europe we should find that those of Italy were probably the most modern, and very production orientated.
I would go so far as to say that we may have over-manning in British industry to the extent of about 2 million out of a total of 7 million. If one put in a consultant and told him to reinvest in the manufacturing capacity of British industry, he would reduce the labour force dramatically in that way, with all the howls and squeals that followed. Therefore, the job of Government must be not to slow down the loss of jobs in manufacturing industry but to go all out to compensate with increased jobs in the service industries.
I was brought up to believe that the Government have only three weapons: they may tax, they may spend and they may control by legislation. All Governments since I first knew about governments have done too much of all three. As a result, we have a situation where the individual—because that is what the United Kingdom is made up of: it is not made up of large organisations-loves to buck the system. The individual, of whatever walk of life, has therefore been stifled.
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If we look at the effects of legislation over time, we find that legislation has killed off the initiative of people wishing to start a legal and open business. Because of the Employment Protection Act and all the other things that go with it, we realise that the individual who wishes to start a business in the United Kingdom will in fact want to start a service business. He does not have the capital to start a manufacturing business. It may be a maintenance and repair shop. It may be a painting business—repainting local authority houses and getting through twice the number of houses in a week that a local authority-employed organisation can get through.
Therefore, the Government have made a mistake in failing to recognise that the revitalisation of an economy comes from the individual who wishes to start and expand a business and then let it grow into a something bigger: today that would be the service business. Later, perhaps, a service organisation might come to the conculsion that if only it made the thing it serviced it would be able to make more money, and so the life cycle would expand. I came to that simple conclusion only through spending a great deal of time in the developing countries and being amazed that, when those countries that had extremist left-wing governments with totalitarian rule and all government spending, changed their attitude, the private sector began gradually to emerge. I had become conditioned with the idea that one must speak to government. Therefore, I would say to an overseas company or individual, "Let's talk to your Minister of Trade". They would all throw up their hands in horror and say, "No, he will only interfere and slow things down; it will take years to get things off the ground". I am not preaching laissez-faire capitalism or necessarily less government intervention. I am merely pointing out that if the Government are to use their weapons, they must encourage the individual to build and create a service industry and not follow the belief that service industries are the wrong things to be in.
The biggest growth area of the United Kingdom over the past few years has been the black economy which is totally service industry orientated. We have an interesting point of concern at present as regards the black service industries, because they

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are not necessarily companies, but individuals. They can get together. They are the people who originally built the motor industry in back garages and streets throughout the country, where with a lathe they turned out something and made a good car. The signs are present where suddenly one sees people making new cars and making money out of them. People make boats. A boat company has gone public today. Ship-building may be back in business. All those elements started with a service operation. It may have been a barrow in Petticoat Lane. However, if the Government were to take a strong look at the way in which corporation tax is levied at present, they would realise that there is nil taxation of larger organisations that have leasing capacities and a chance to use up their taxable profits, and appreciate what a burden rests upon the individual. Fortunately that burden has been lifted from the individual, but not yet as regards the small company, though we know that the Government have plans.
The contribution of service industries to exports is clear from the invisible export programme and the figures of the Committee on Invisible Exports. Equally, the point has been raised that investments abroad in fact increase visible exports. A factor that other Governments, or previous Governments, failed fully to recognise is that a very large proportion of British exports go to British subsidiaries abroad and that finance and trade are irrevocably linked, and investment and trade are linked. Thus, we should at present be going all out to encourage service industries in the United Kingdom—and maybe some manufacturing industries that felt that they could not compete in the local markets abroad without having a presence— to establish operations in partnership with companies or organisations in Third World countries.
When looking at the service industries, although one automatically has an inclination to attack the centre and to attack Quangos and Government organisations, we should not overlook the tremendous contribution that many Government agencies have made in the service industries, or in the service sector, to Third World countries—whether it has been through the Commonwealth Development
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Corporation, Crown Agents or even the arms of nationalised industries or Government Departments in the scientific field. All of those are areas which one needs to encourage.
I see no problem about the attitude to the City of London, financial services, tourism and so on. However, where I do see a weakness is in the failure to recognise that, in manufacturing industry, service, maintenance and service sectors could make a vital contribution to the economy. I should hate to pontificate on what attitudes might be, but I do not believe that the British worker—whatever status, life or salary he has—likes repetitive work. The time has come when working on the shop floor for repetitive industries is almost against the inclination of the British. That is borne out when one meets a man who works an automatic welder, bringing it up and down 300 times a day, and one asks him, "Will you knock me up a tool box?"—black economy. He then goes away with a chisel and a hammer. He thoroughly enjoys it and charges you virtually nothing or perhaps the company may charge you nothing. People want to get back to making things.
However, within that theory and the fear that the British work-force is nonproductive, we must recognise that a strange thing has happened over the past few years: skilled labour has emerged again in the form of craftsmen, stonemasons and carpenters. People at a young age become fed up with repetitive work and start a small business of their own. The other day I met a young stonemason working for the Department of the Environment. He received a minor ticking off for having carved his name and the date on, I think, a gargoyle that went up somewhere. He said, "Why not? It is as good a job as the original chap did, and he had his name on it!"
I see room for hope. I think that this Government have taken some brave decisions. Their decision to cut expenditure across the board will, of course, worry us and everyone should fight for their own area and we should fight for tourism as well. Indeed, while I am dealing with tourism I should perhaps declare an interest. My own group—which was one of those that purchased Thomas Cook from the Government—finds that

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Thomas Cook is far more productive and successful as an independent organisation than it ever was under the Government. However, this Government have done something which previous Governments failed to do. At a stroke, they have passed the buck hack to the people. They have sought to create a climate and have said, "Get on with it; it is up to you". We should concentrate on the service area. I hope the people do not let the Government down.
4.50 p.m.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, I am not quite sure what the etiquette of the House is about congratulating a noble Lord on his maiden speech from the Back-Benches, but certainly I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Leonard on his maiden speech from the Back-Benches. I am sure that all your Lordships appreciated the fact that on this occasion he had to do his own homework.
We are very grateful to my noble friend Lord Parry for introducing this short debate with typical Welsh fervour, and for drawing to your Lordships' attention the fact that our predominance as a major industrial nation is down and that we would be foolish to ignore the importance of the service sector. This has allowed the debate today to range very much more widely than my noble friend might have anticipated when he first tabled his Motion.
The facts are, of course, that employment in all sectors of manufacturing industry has fallen by about 1 per cent. a year over the past 10 years, and that from 8¼ million employees in 1968, it has dropped to about 7⅓ million in 1979, those being the most recent figures available; whereas employment in service industry is increasing. For example—
and this is a most important part of service industry and one to which my noble friend Lord Parry referred—employment in the hotel and catering sector increased by about 2 per cent. a year from 1968, from 678,000 to 883,000 in 1977.
It was rightly pointed out by my noble friend Lord Parry that the creation of jobs in the service sector is much cheaper than it is in other sectors. I fear that that factor has been studiously ignored by successive Governments. In fact, this
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point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, in particular. The British Tourist Authority believes that about 1½ million of all jobs in this country are directly or indirectly dependent on tourism. This means that a sizeable number of jobs—for example, in the retailing ector of the service industry—are dependent on tourism; and, of course, that goes even wider in that many of the goods sold in the retail sector rely on being purchased by tourists.
It is interesting to note that employment in the retail sector has remained very static during the past 10 years, despite a number of labour-saving innovations in the retail trade. However, one sometimes wonders whether some of these innovations have gone too far. Certainly it might be said that there could be some correlation between lower staffing levels and the higher rate of shoplifting, and that an improvement in the quality of service could well lead to a decrease in shoplifting.
As has been pointed out, other sectors of the service industries—such as the financial services sector—have also shown substantial increases in employment over the past 10 years. Employment in this sector has increased by over 1 million. The services provided in this sector were dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, and by the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, urged that the Government should take more positive action to encourage growth in the service sector, and I believe that this should and must be very seriously considered by the Government.
However, a large part of the debate today has concentrated on the issue of tourism. I should like to dwell on this for a few minutes. We would be wrong to assume that as a nation we shall continue to attract an increasing share of world tourism. There is no doubt that world tourism will continue to increase, but the much more difficult question is whether or not our share of that world market will continue to increase. During the past decade we have certainly been fortunate and have succeeded in grabbing, if that is the right word, an increasing share of this trade. But whether or not that will continue is something about which we shall have to be on our toes.

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In many ways the tourist industry is a very fragile industry. My noble friend Lord Parry referred to the morale of travellers. The noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, referred to the confidence of travellers. We should always remember that no tourist has to travel to Britain; he has a choice to make and the sort of welcome he can expect here will influence whether or not he decidesto make the trip. Therefore, there are a number of matters which may seem quite peripheral but which will have the effect of influencing that decision one way or the other.
Over the past few years I have been concerned about the fact that what we might think to be a fairly harmless headline in the British Press gets blown up when repeated abroad, in such a way that it can make people decide not to make a particular trip. Of course, the most notable example of that is when we had the three-day week some years ago. That had a very adverse effect on tourism. In that connection I have always liked the story told to me by one leading London hotelier. Apparently he received a telephone call from an American asking him which three days of the week his hotel was open.
More recently, industrial disputes, stories about litter, which were repeated in Der Spiegel earlier in the year, and stories about hotels being full, have all had their effect and have led to cancellations, and to people, for one reason or another, deciding not to come here. The Government must be very much on their guard over this. I know that the British Tourist Authority does what it can to counteract stories of this nature when they are repeated overseas. But in a sense we have a national characteristic of denigrating ourselves, which does not go hand in hand with the success of an industry such as the tourist industry.
Another aspect of the fragility of the tourist industry—it was brought to my attention today—is underlined by the fact that the recent petrol shortages have led to a 30 per cent. decline in admissions to stately homes over the past few months. This is a level which can throw the economies of those tourist attractions into complete disarray if continued for any length of time. Over the years there has been continual pressure from certain
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quarters on the Government to introduce a tourist tax. I hope that the Government will continue to resist those pressures. It is often forgotten that tourists already pay a substantial amount in taxation. In 1978 —250 million was paid in taxes by tourists. In fact, a large amount of that tax was in the form of VAT charges on hotels, restaurants and the like. Therefore, it will be quite clear that one of the side effects of this year's Budget, with the increase in VAT to 15 per cent., will be that in 1980 tourists are likely to pay in the region of £500 million in taxes. I should have thought that any thought of any additional taxation should he forgotten, particularly as we should remember that we are competing in a world market and that unless the quality and price of the goods which we have to offer are competitive with other countries, with their venues, we will in fact not get a lot of the business.
My noble friend Lord Parry has spoken of the question of hotel prices. It is certainly true that there are high hotel prices in London and that we are, with regard to the top 20 hotels, one of the most expensive tourist venues in Europe. Hoteliers have to be very much on their mettle to ensure that we do not price ourselves out of this sector of the market.
I also hope that the Government will continue to press forward—because this is another important aspect—on the various price marking orders issued by the last Government to ensure that tourists, whether overseas or home tourists, are aware of the prices they are paying for goods. As the noble Lord will know, price marking orders were introduced for the display of prices for ice-creams; orders have been introduced for the display of prices of hotel beds; and further orders are to be introduced concerning certain aspects of restaurant prices. Inevitably, one gets many complaints about overcharging, but it is important, when a tourist is asking for a particular service, that he knows the bargain which he is making, and he knows the price which he has been asked to pay.
I was glad to hear my noble friend Lord Parry of the Wales Tourist Board say that London is not just a gateway to the provinces but is a major reason why people visit them, and that he underlined the fact that more hotels are required in

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London. I can assure him that that factor is not forgotten. Indeed people are very much aware that there will become a sizeable need in four or five years' time for additional hotel beds in London.
The final point that I should like to mention—and which the noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, mentioned—concerns the cut in grants to the tourist authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, was concerned that these should be properly applied. I am sure one would agree with that. What one would be concerned about is to see that while there is every support for cutting a grant which will cut any fat out of a particular organisation, it should not be so extensive as to damage the work being done by the tourist boards. I hope that the Government will ensure that before these cuts are implemented they will be able to check and have full knowledge of the effects of these cuts.
I have, perhaps inevitably, during the latter part of my remarks concentrated on the question of the tourist industry side of the service industry as a whole, but we must acknowledge that this is becoming increasingly vital to our national economy, and that ignoring the importance of the service sector is something we do at our peril.
5.4 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, every noble Lord has said, quite rightly, how grateful we are to the noble Lord, Lord Parry, for introducing this important, not to say vital, matter this afternoon. I should like in the course of my own remarks to refer to some of the points raised. Before doing so, I must congratulate the noble Lord on his recent appointment to the chair of the Wales Tourist Board, to which he referred, and also thank him for his kind references to me at the beginning of his remarks.
I remember the noble Lord so well when he was seconding the Motion to the humble Address which was proposed so eloquently on that occasion by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and I remember my noble friend Lord Carrington, then Leader of the Opposition, wondering whether Abraham Lincoln had joined the Labour Party. However improbable that may sound, the noble Lord will doubtless now see to it that Wales remains as great a tourist attraction as the late
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American President still is, sitting slumped in his stone chair in Washington. I can think of no one better than the noble Lord to bring tourists and holidaymakers flocking to the Principality.
Our service industries are, of course, legion. If I may be permitted a brief incursion into party politics, I am bound to say that I contrast sharply the helpful attitude of noble Lords sitting on the Opposition side of the House today with the actions of some of their predecessors in years past. Your Lordships may recall the dreaded selective employment tax, which was aimed directly against the service sector of industry, which I think was then a dirty phrase in the minds of some of their then noble friends, and I fear served only to fuel inflation and quite failed in its primary task.
Tourism has been the principal topic of the debate this afternoon. I can assure your Lordships that the Government fully recognise the value of this industry, and are considering whether any changes need to be made in the way they give assistance to the industry. Last year there were a record 12.6 million visits by overseas visitors to Britain. Earnings were also up. From overseas residents the total, excluding fares, was £2,502 million; a rise of nearly 3 per cent. on the previous year. The net balance, after allowing, for expenditure by British residents going abroad, was £954 million. It is quite plain therefore that tourism must be one of our most important invisible exports.
It is difficult to be precise about jobs created directly, or indirectly, through tourism, but I note the figures mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. There can be no doubt that a large number of people, not only in the hotel and catering industry but in shops, transport services, museums and other tourist attractions, and indeed in manufacturing, as the noble Lord indicated, depend to a greater or a less degree on tourist custom for their livelihood.
There has been speculation recently about possible shortages of hotel accommodation. I would not dispute that more tourists will mean more people arriving late without a reservation at peak times of demand, and they might experience difficulty in getting accommodation. But happily we have the tourist informa-

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tion centres, which even now are helping people in this predicament. May I mention the position in London specifically. There is a growing concern that if the number of visitors to Britain continue to increase, even if not at the phenomenal rates of the past few years, London as a major attraction will need more hotels to accommodate them. It has been predicted that by 1990 London will need some 20,000 new hotel rooms, but the high cost of land and construction in the central boroughs is a deterrent, and hotel companies prefer at present to refurbish and upgrade existing stock. However, we are pleased to hear that the GLC is exploring possibilities of hotel investment, and I understand that dockland in particular is being considered as a possible site in this regard.
May I now turn to the tax implications in the hotel industry. Your Lordships may know that in response to pleas from the industry provision was made in the 1978 Finance Act for an initial allowance of 20 per cent. of capital investment in buildings, and an annual writing down allowance of 4 per cent. for hotels which meet certain requirements. This is estimated to be worth £15 million to the industry in a year. Hotels have always qualified for the 100 per cent. allowance for investment in plant and equipment. The Department of Trade has received representations from various bodies urging more liberal coverage. Decisions on further allowances for the industry are of course for my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I should say now that, although the Government are actively looking for ways of reducing public expenditure, we will consider carefully any suggestions for using existing resources more effectively.
Tourism is an industry in which small businesses are very important, and I am pleased to say that in the Budget the Chancellor outlined proposals to help such small businesses, and thereby the tourism industry, by raising the threshold for corporation tax and the reduction to 60 per cent. in the rate of development land tax, both of which are worthwhile measures. They should, we believe, encourage further investments in this important sector.
Despite the Government's concern for the tourism industry, it is true that
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tourism along with other programmes will have to contribute to the reductions the Government are making in public expenditure generally this year. The cuts, though small, may mean that some of the planned growth of the activities may have to be curtailed, but the allocation is still an increase in real terms over last year's provision. I know the boards are seeking to do all they can to increase revenue, for instance by the sale of publications and joint efforts with the trade, but I should say that we have not yet decided whether any further detailed changes need to be made.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, referred to the possibility of a tourist tax. There are some who say, "Let us tax tourists"; and if the industry as a whole thought that such a proposal would be useful, the Government would be prepared to examine it closely. But the tourist industry is so varied, and such a proposal would raise practical difficulties of collection. We must not forget, too, that tourists already pay VAT, now 15 per cent. as Lord Ponsonby reminded us, on many of the things they buy here, as well as liquor, tobacco and petrol taxes; and I would certainly underline the point he made that last year tourists contributed £250 million to the Exchequer in this way, and will certainly be contributing much more than that this year, although I would not want to put a precise figure on it in the way the noble Lord did.
Lord PONSONBY of SHULBREDE: My Lords, I referred to the figure for 1980, not for this year.
Lord TREFGARNE: I think the noble Lord was very wise, my Lords. The appointment of a Minister for Tourism has also been suggested. That is a matter for the Prime Minister, but at present ministerial responsibility for tourism rests with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade, who ensures that the subject gets the necessary hearing in Cabinet as the need arises. He is assisted of course by my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, who has special responsibilities for tourism.
The system works successfully with the support of the statutory boards and non-statutory regional boards, who carry a

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great deal of the day-to-day responsibility for tourism in Britain. A separate Ministry would employ more bureaucracy, to which this Government are opposed, and I do not think therefore there is a real case for a Minister for Tourism at the present time.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, also referred to the question of the petrol shortage and it is right that I should say something about that. We are aware that considerable alarm has been shown by the tourist industry, especially in the resort areas, at the cancellation of bookings, evidently because of people's fears that they will be unable to obtain petrol. Undoubtedly the supply situation varies from place to place, but most fears are probably unfounded. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy announced in another place, the oil companies have been asked to ensure a more even and effective distribution, and this should help to dispel rumours and ease anxieties which may have caused some holidaymakers to change their plans. There is a shortfall in actual oil supplies to the United Kingdom; on average this is about 5 per cent. below the increased level on which people were counting. Clearly, it is important that everyone should economise and, provided they do so, there should be no need for anyone to miss their holidays.
So much for tourism. I turn to some of the other matters, of no less importance, that were raised by other noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Polwarth, and others, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, mentioned the question of banking and its associated activities. The City's financial institutions earned us a net surplus of about £1,750 million in 1977. After insurance, the largest component of that surplus was banking; our banks earned us over £300 million net in 1977 from a great variety of sources. All the indications are that this sector, which has an excellent record of innovation to meet the requirements of overseas customers, will continue to make a substantial contribution to the balance of payments.
I know that one area in which the banks say the Government could help them is a further relaxation of exchange controls to
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allow them to lend sterling to finance third country trade. As the Chancellor said in the Budget, the Government intend to dismantle exchange controls progressively and will certainly consider that possibility. Before passing from banking, perhaps I may pay tribute to its representatives on the Committee on Invisible Exports and indeed all the committee, at least two of whom arc in your Lordships' House tonight. Since its establishment in 1967, its members have worked hard to improve our performance and ensure that the invisible account surplus is consolidated and improved.
On the matter of the invisible account surplus, I draw your Lordships' attention to some rather interesting figures; Lord Parry particularly mentioned the general improvement in our balance of trade position over the years. Some think that this has been due solely to an increase in the invisible figure. Although the invisible figures have gone up as well as down in recent years, I think, the truth really is that without in any way wishing to decry the efforts of our invisible export earners, the steady and substantial improvement in our balance of payments over the years has been due to a decline in the deficit on the visible trade balance. For example, I have in front of me the figures for 1978, where the current balance was a surplus of £443 million, the visible account was in deficit to the tune of £1,175 million, and the invisible account was in surplus to the amount of £1,618 million: that was actually a decline on the invisible surplus from 1977.
Perhaps I may touch on the insurance industry, which several noble Lords properly raised. The Government fully recognise the importance of the contribution made by insurance—that is, by insurance companies, Lloyds and brokers to the invisible trade balance and the functioning of the economy. In 1977, insurance accounted for over half the overseas earnings of United Kingdom financial institutions, with a contribution of £909 million, 14 per cent. higher than in 1976. Our domestic economy benefits through the supply of services and by a strong and internationally highly competitive United Kingdom insurance industry, but I should sound a word of warning. This does not mean that all is smooth sailing. The insurance industry continued to face in 1978 an excess of

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capacity over demand, which depressed premiums in certain markets, and the continued high level of claims creates problems particularly in liability business. Difficulties also arise from the protectionist tendencies in some parts of the world and, furthermore, genuine competition is increasing world-wide. These factors lend importance to the prospects of an expanding insurance market in the EEC, and here the Government are playing a positive part in the Brussels discussions to harmonise the insurance requirements of Member countries which should facilitate the operation of our insurers in the Common Market.
The question of shipping was dealt with at great length in a debate in your Lordships' House just last week and I do not think it would be appropriate for me to go into that in too much depth tonight. However, I shall, on an allied point, take up a matter which Lord Ponsonby mentioned about the balance of payments from civil aviation. The United Kingdom is a net exporter of air transport; that is to say, our airlines' net earnings abroad exceed foreign airlines' net earnings from United Kingdom residents. The figures for 1977 were £336 million and £92 million in those two respects. The civil aviation account in the balance of payments consistently shows a surplus; for example, it was £116 million in 1975, £241 million in 1976, and £244 million in 1977. That is not necessarily the same as the shipping industry, which has not actually maintained the same surplus over the years. Of course aviation is not exempt from cyclical fluctuation of profits, but its financial results are more stable than those of the shipping industry.
My Lords, we have had a magnificent debate. The House is greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Parry, for raising this most important matter. It could perhaps have been a topic for a full day's debate. Nevertheless, your Lordships have done the subject more than justice in the limited time available. I hope that the many expert contributions will be widely read; they certainly will be in the Government.
5.21 p.m.
Lord PARRY: My Lords, the House will be as grateful as I am to the noble
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Lord who has just spoken from the Front Bench for his full and thoughtful answers to some of the questions raised and for the dimension that he has added to our debate. I should like to take just a second or two to say that I feel that all who have spoken—and I thank them—would join me in saying how much I admired the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Selsdon, delivered totally without notes, in the ancient tradition of the House. I want to congratulate him, and I look forward to hearing him in the not far distant future speaking from a position alongside some of his colleagues on the Front Bench. My Lords, I ask leave to withdraw the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

PRISONS: PROPER USE
5.22 p.m.
Lord SOPER Lord SOPER rose to call attention to the proper use of prisons as a factor in maintaining law and order; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to introduce the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper, and I wish immediately to say "thank you" to those noble Lords who intend to take part in the debate. Owing to a seepage of speakers, I consider, if I may presume to say so, that a maximum of 14 minutes each will be acceptable so as to fall within the time limit to which we are committed in this particular debate.
There is nothing that needs more stringent and continuous attention by any society than processes in which imperfect human beings endeavour to deal with those who, in their judgment—and quite rightly so in many cases—are even more imperfect. That is a very sufficient reason for the regular investigation of matters that have to do with imprisonment. But that general proposition has added significance and pertinence at a time when, in the general view, there is an excess of behaviour which is anti-social and an increase in crime—and I shall not spend any time analysing whether it is an increase in human wickedness, or an increase in the availability and the actual practice of, and opportunities for, crime—as well as at the same time a deep sense of suspicion that things are not by any means as well as

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they could be within the general fabric of the system that we call the prison system.
It is indeed true that for a very long time now the questions that have very properly been asked about the prisons have been questions which began at least in the sense that something must be very seriously wrong. At this moment the august body of the Methodist Conference, across the road, is continuing in the tradition which goes as far back as John Wesley himself: that a constant scrutiny of what goes on in prisons is a very necessary part of a civilised community's attitude to crime and, even more, to the criminal. Mind you, my Lords, John Wesley was much more concerned about the permanent condition of those temporarily incarcerated, than he was, shall we say, about the reform of the actual conditions in the prison system.
I believe that a new dimension has emerged, and it requires even more careful attention. There is no longer only the question of whether prisons need to be reformed, or whether the prison system as it stands needs to recover or in fact to initiate a different kind of programme and performance. There are not a few—and I happen to belong to them—who believe that it is now a question of whether the prison system itself is viable, and it is in the light of that conviction which has come to me that I would append what I have to say in introducing the debate.
There is a rough and ready guide to the question, what should prisons do? They should endeavour to punish, they should endeavour to deter, and they should endeavour to reform. I shall say something about the performance and programme of punishment, the intention of deterrents, and the hope of reform. The facts which stare into the face of anybody who takes the trouble to look at the prison system as it now stands, or now totters, are that there are 42,000 people in the prisons of this country—a larger number than in any EEC country —and that 11,000 of them are in cells in which two people occupy a space which in Victorian times was built to contain just one. Furthermore, no fewer than 5,000 of our prisoners are in cells equally small and are three to a cell. This is an abomination.
When I was a prison chaplain many years ago I hoped and prayed that this intolerable situation would be dealt with, but it remains. I should have thought that, because it remains, probably the first of all the intentions that ought to belong to a debate of this kind should be to see to it that, if a prison system is to be continued, it practises to those who are incarcerated a humanitarian attitude which does not permit to occupy a single cell two or three people who have never known one another before and who are likely to impose upon one another not the best of relationships. This is to say nothing of the imminent and continuous processes in the sexual field, on which we are seeing in some respects perhaps rather more publicity than is good for us. Nevertheless, I cannot forbear to mention this matter—namely, the problem of homosexuality, which has increased considerably among many people who are compelled to live three in a cell. This is an intolerable situation, and if I say nothing else, I hope that the Government will take every means in their power to bring it to an end.
It is also equally true that there are still 3,000 alcoholics or drunks in the prisons. The previous Government enacted resolutions which, thank God! implied that there was no direct line to a prison, for the man who was simply drunk. Yet, by the imposition of grossly enlarged fines, those same drunks have now by another route found an inescapable end in the prison cell. You do not do any good to an alcoholic or a drunk by putting him in prison. I shall say later that you do not do any good to anybody—but let us start there.
I am satisfied that there is very much that is wrong with prison administration, but I shall not dilate upon that scene because the May Inquiry will no doubt tell us in detail a little later in the year what ought to and could be done to reduce the perturbation in the public mind, as well as do what I am sure other speakers will adumbrate and I shall refer to it: transfer the whole emphasis away from the solid block system of Pentonville, which I know so well, and translate the custodial necessity which still remains to smaller and more open kinds of establishment.
I shall not say any more about the dreadfully imperfect and dangerous con-

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dition in prisons as such, except to remind myself, and perhaps the House, that punishment ceases when it becomes just the after-effect of a deadening process which quite obviously—and in many cases—disappears within a few weeks. The first impact of prison is the reformative and deterrent one. The longer a man stays in prison the more he becomes deadened to the processes which might otherwise contribute to his reformation and his improvement, and it is the deadening effect of the prisons as they now stand which I believe is perhaps the first argument for a total repudiation of the prison system and its replacement by something of very much greater value.
Secondly, as to deterrence, this House will know, or should know, that 50 per cent. of those who are in our prisons are back again in our prisons within two years, and for young offenders the figure is 65 per cent. Nobody says that imprisonment is not a deterrent. Any unpleasant experience in prospect is a deterrent. But the idea that the best kind of deterrent is imprisonment is totally invalidated by the evidence. There are very much better ways of deterring people. Perhaps the best of all is, of course, to make it much more likely that they will be caught if they engage upon anti-social activity. But the idea that deterrence belongs to the prison system is invalidated by the evidence. There is of course an element of deterrence in any process that involves punishment, but there is no evidence that the prison system as it stands, and as it has been improved, makes deterrence more effective.
Now as to reform. I was a prison chaplain for 30 years. I cannot remember a single man who was reformed by being in prison—not one. I can remember those who, serving very short sentences, were for a time, perhaps, brought to recognise something of the gravity of what they had been doing; but I am completely convinced that the longer a man stays in prison, the longer he stays in that kind of incarceration, the less is the prospect of reform and the more certain is the process of decay. That is why I have consistently tried to say that any man who is imprisoned in one particular set of circumstances for more than five years is probably dead for life. It is highly unlikely that those who have endured that kind of monotonous
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deadening will be able to recover in the real world what they have lost in the artificial element and environment of prison life. There has been, I think, in my time, a considerable increase in the amelioration of conditions in prison; but, to refer again for a moment to the artificiality of it, the longer a man stays in prison the less capable he will be of recovering his place and establishing his position back in the real world to which he is increasingly made alien by the very processes which he undergoes.
This Motion asks about the place of prison in the preservation of law and order, but I would presume to say to your Lordships that both prison and law and order are means, not ends. Law and order is another means to the condition in which a prison system, if it is to be valid and viable, must work. I do not believe that you can evaluate true law and order unless you first set it within a framework which is much larger than the preservation of (shall we say?) the integrity of the individual from assault and the preservation of the rule of law. It depends who makes the laws; it depends what is their kind of order. In fact, it finally depends on what sort of society we live in.
As a professing Christian I am profoundly grateful for the reminder that none other than Karl Marx provides for us: that there are many more people who are improved by living in a community, the environment of which suggests goodness, than who are improved by even the most fervent evangelical jamborees, where they are invited to save their own souls by individual repentence. Not that I am against individual repentence—far from it. But I am perfectly satisfied that if we could look at the prison system as playing a part in the community which we look to, a community of service and not merely a community of getting and spending, we should by that means have evaluated any place that it could possibly take in that new society. I do not believe that as it stands now it can; I believe it is incorrigible. What I do believe is that there are elements within the prison system which could be preserved. No doubt other speakers will extend the argument in that field, and I shall be very grateful to listen to what they have to say.
I will conclude, if your Lordships will allow a Methodist minister to give his experience, with a reminiscence. I re-

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member one autumn night when I was taking a service in Pentonville Prison. Noble Lords may be astonished at the selection of hymns that prisoners are wont to choose. Let me quote a verse from one of them, which I heard them sing:
"Slowly the hours of daylight fade;
So fade within my heart
The hopes of earthly peace and joy,
Which one by one depart".
I believe that is the truth about the prison system. It is destructive; it is not creative. There are many good and decent people seeking to operate it, but it stands condemned because ultimately it is a dead end.
I would wish that we were prepared to spend our time, energy and money on other means of semi-custodial and custodial agreements as to what should be done with the anti-social members of the community—and I do not share the sentimental nonsense of those who pretend that there is nothing particularly wrong with criminals. Many of them are very bad people; but I hope that out of this debate will come the increasing assurance that the basis of the prison system is evasive—put them out of the way and then you need not worry about them—and that it is irremediable. I hope that out of this debate we shall come to conclusions on which we may build a better system of dealing with those who are anti-social, who misbehave, but who, I believe, again as a professing Christian, are recoverable if only they can be set within a society in which they will breathe a cleaner air and in which they will have a reasonable chance of seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, however long that tunnel has to be before they emerge from it. I beg to move for Papers.
5.37 p.m.
Lord FOOT: My Lords, your Lordships will no doubt have noticed by looking at the clock that the noble Lord, Lord Soper, has kept strictly within the time limit which he set for himself, and I hope it may be encouraging to the House if I say at once that I hope to beat that limit by a substantial margin. Indeed, it is always a difficult thing to follow the noble Lord, Lord Soper, partly because he has usually said everything that one intended to say oneself and also because one is always faced with the fact that it
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would be impossible to say it better. What I would say to the House in just a few minutes this afternoon is really nothing but an addendum and a footnote to what the noble Lord has been saying.
I was reminded this afternoon, when I was thinking of what I might say here this evening, that 10 years ago, shortly after I came into this House, we had a debate here initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge. That was back on the 5th March 1969. I do not know whether the noble Lord remembers that, but the subject-matter of the debate on that occasion was to ask Her Majesty's Government:
"whether they will report on the progress of the reform of the penal system since the Criminal Justice Act 1967; and in particular, to draw their attention to the lack of adequate long-term support for the after-care of prisoners on discharge".
As always, I avidly looked to see what I had said on that occasion, and I was rather pleased to note that I finished what I had to say in this manner—and I am quoting now from Hansard of 5th March 1969, column 178:
"I do not know how many of us will still be here in 1979, but we may then have another debate in which a noble Lord will get up and ask whether the Government will report upon the progress of penal reform in this country. How far shall we then have gone under our present system? Will the Minister at that time be able to report that we then have working several experiments on the lines of the Albany one? Will he be able to tell us in ten years' time that there has been any substantial alteration in the whole system?".
Unhappily, my Lords, the answer to that question must be unquestionably, No.
There is only one aspect of this matter to which I want to refer tonight because I do not want to detract from what I want to say by venturing upon other avenues of interest and discussion. I should have thought that it was unquestionable that, in one area of the penal system as compared with 10 years ago, our condition is manifestly much worse than it was, and that is in the matter of the overcrowding to which the noble Lord was referring. Mr. Roy Jenkins, when Home Secretary, said that if the figures of the daily prison population in this country topped 42,000 we should have reached what I think he described as breaking point. We are over that figure, as the noble Lord has reminded us.

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Indeed, had it not been for the measures for finding alternatives to imprisonment which we have been able to invoke during these past 10 years, those figures would have been very much worse than they are. If I remember rightly, the estimate given by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, in the debate that we had some months ago, towards the end of the last Parliament, was that, had it not been for the alternatives to imprisonment, the figure of the daily prison population would be little short of 50,000 today.
The noble Lord says quite rightly of course that there are many theories about the purposes of imprisonment and the purposes of the penal system: rehabilitation, reform, deterrence and the like. There are of course wide differences among the people of this country about the purposes of imprisonment. There has never been in our history any consensus upon the objects that imprisonment is designed to achieve. However, there is one matter upon which I think all informed people are agreed: the overcrowding which has been an endemic condition of our system over the past two or three decades is an unmitigated evil. There is nobody who would be anxious to try and defend that situation. The noble Lord has reminded us of what it means: no fewer than 16,000 people every day—as on this day of this week—are confined in prison and are living either two or three in a cell. It means very often these people are herded together for 23 hours out of 24 in a cell, as the noble Lord reminds us, designed for one person.
The other fact of the matter is that these conditions exist in some of our most antiquated penal establishments. We should also remind ourselves that these conditions are imposed not only upon convicted criminals but upon those on remand who may never be sent to prison at all and who may be found to be innocent. In my opinion this is a system which not only degrades and humiliates the people upon whom it is imposed, but it also degrades and humiliates the prison officers, the governors and all those who have to carry out the awful responsibility of supervising the system.
It is no use saying that this is intolerable, as we sometimes do, because we tolerate it and have tolerated it for 10 years,
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20 years. Much has been rightly said in the past about the unspeakable physical burdens and conditions which this system imposes upon those who suffer under it. Less has been said and written about what I regard as just as great an evil: the terrible psychological strain which this system imposes upon those who are subject to it.
I believe that among the many basic, deep human needs is the desire of all of us at times to withdraw and be alone. I should like to hear the noble Lord, Lord Soper, preach a sermon—I dare say he may have done it—upon the text of those occasions when Jesus went into a place apart from his family and from his disciples. The poet Wordsworth expressed perhaps better than anybody else in the English language the importance at times of solitude. Everyone of us—criminals and others—has at times need of our own private Gethsemane. This is the deep human need of which this system of overcrowding deprives the people who are subject to it.
That is really all I wanted to say in this debate. It amounts only to trying to underline some of the things the noble Lord has said. I do not go as far as he does in saying that we have to find some completely radical, new alternative to the whole system of imprisonment. I do not think that is practicable; but there are many avenues which can be explored. The importance of this problem of overcrowding was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge—and I am glad that he is present and that I can remind him of it—in the debate back in 1969 when he said that there is a prerequisite to any prison reform, and that is to get rid of overcrowding. Unless we are able to solve this problem, unless we are able to reduce the prison population so that people can be contained in elementary conditions of decency, then none of the other penal problems will be solved.
However, there are avenues which can be explored and which have not been explored. One of them would be to seek to find further ways in which people can be dealt with in the criminal courts without being taken out of the community and put into prison. Another would be a deliberate decision by society that we would cut the level of all prison sentences. Another one would be to

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extend the arrangements for remission and extend the application of the parole system. There are all these things to be considered.
An even more radical suggestion was made about a fortnight ago at a conference of NACRO by a prison governor who said that he thought that some dramatic, political initiative was the only way in which the enormous strains on the prison system at the present moment can be alleviated. That, he said, was by an amnesty granted to a large category of prisoners which might give to the prison system the breathing space that it requires in order that it can try and improve its arrangements. It is because I believe that this is the sine qua non—the solution of the overcrowding problem is the prerequisite of all penal reform—that I am glad to take part in this debate and support what has been said so excellently by the noble Lord—and, my Lords, I have kept within my 14 minutes.
5.50 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER: My Lords, one of the minor consequences of the two main parties in this House changing sides is that my noble and reverend friend Lord Soper now looks across at us on these Benches with characteristic irreverence for the establishment, instead of sitting behind us and being able to prod and exhort us in his own inimitable way. We are all very grateful to him for initiating this debate. If one consequence of it is that it has kept him from the Methodist Conference, let me say that I have been there and, as always, have been refreshed by Methodists' singing, and by their equally vigorous social concern.
Not one of us in any part of this House can fail to be concerned about the present state of the Prison Services. I want in this short debate to discuss the staffing situation in our penal establishments. The initial inquiry established seven months ago under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice May has a part of its task to consider the need to recruit and retain a sufficient and suitable staff as well as the need to secure the efficient use of manpower in the Prison Service. If men and women are to be attracted into the Prison Service who have not only the right qualifications but also the right motivation for their
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work, they will need to be assured not just of adequate pay but also of being able to achieve satisfaction in their work and to gain opportunities of real interest and commitment.
The situation at the present time is not just one of considerable discontent and frustration. Things have in fact reached a pass in many prisons where the aim set forth in Prison Rule No. 1, which states that
".… the purpose of the training and treatment of convicted prisoners shall be to encourage and assist them to lead a good and useful life"
has been made virtually impossible. Conditions are now such that officers have to be content with what the home affairs correspondent of the late lamented Times newspaper described in one of its very last editions in November as "little more than humane containment"; and as a philosophy, he said:
"It is more suited to a zoo than to a prison".
Prison staff are stretched at the present time to the limits and in all too many cases are able to perform only the basic essentials. They are quite unable to engage in in-service training for those basic tasks, let alone being able to look towards more distant horizons of joint welfare projects. Many of the staff want to pioneer in this field, but at best they can do so only if some of their colleagues are ready to sacrifice staffing levels to make that possible.
I think we always have to remember that members of the prison staff share many of the conditions to which the prisoners themselves are subject, including the overcrowded conditions, which the noble Lord, Lord Foot, has described to us so vividly. When to that are added long hours, over-dependence on overtime, a complicated pay structure and uncertainty as to how their role relates to that of the Probation Service, I think we can begin to see why the report and the recommendations of the May Commission are awaited so eagerly. And how very important it will be that the Government respond to it, not by anything in the way of panic legislation but by long-term planning and by a creative approach to the place of prisons and custodial sentences in the maintenance of law and order.
I, too, like the noble Lord, Lord Foot, was interested to read of a proposal for

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some form of amnesty to allow a breathing space to be obtained so that any new policy put forward by the May Commission in its report would stand some chance of success. I would not presume to judge whether such a proposal is realistic. I would, however, have thought that we might begin to tackle the matter of reducing the present prison population by taking action on some of the recommendations already put forward in numerous reports made in the last ten years.
In 1977, 16,040 people were received into prison for not paying fines: yet in 1970 the Wootton Committee recommended that non-custodial penalties should be truly non-custodial. In 1977, 2,641 men were received into prison for not paying maintenance: yet the Payne Committee in 1969 and the Finer Committee in 1974 favoured the abolition of imprisonment for such defaulters, the second report describing it as,
"… an essay in economic and social futility".
In 1977, 2,697 receptions into prison were for drunken offences: yet, as the noble Lord, Lord Soper, has already told us, the 1971 Home Office Report recommended that the right place for such people were detoxification centres. On 31st December 1977 it was estimated by prison medical officers that 682 prisoners were suffering from mental disorders which would have warranted detention in hospital for psychiatric treatment. Yet the report of the Prison Department for the previous year, 1976, said this:
"Apart from the inhuman aspects of committing mentally disordered offenders to prisons and Borstals, it is not possible to provide many of these unfortunates with the medical and nursing care their conditions require while they arc in custody".
Finally, there was a recently-published survey of the sentenced prison population in South-East England, carried out by members of the Home Office Research Unit, which showed that 30 per cent. of all those in prison were there for petty or minor offences. Twenty-one per cent. were assessed as mentally disordered and no fewer than 30 percent. were assessed as homeless. A third of the total prison population was assessed as being divertible from prison on the grounds that they had not committed any serious offence against the person, had made no gain from their crime and had no obvious competence or ability to plan.
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A reduction of the prison population on such a scale would transform the whole situation for the prison staff and would enable them to feel that they were no longer just "turn-keys" but were part of a nation-wide service that was better able to achieve the right balance between containment, retribution and rehabilitation.
It is inevitable—and we all know this—that the May Report will have to be considered and implemented at a time when reductions in expenditure are the order of the day. Nevertheless, I hope we shall find that the Government, with their concern for law and order, will see that a creative and long-term approach to the Prison Service, whatever the initial cost may be, will not only further the proper use of prisons in maintaining law and order, but will also restore to their rightful place the true objectives of the Prison Service—the training and treatment of convicted prisoners—and give real job satisfaction and proper recognition to the men and women of the Prison Service, who on behalf of us all, do their work out of sight but, I hope, never out of mind.
6.1 p.m.
Lord ALLEN of ABBEYDALE: My Lords, I am rather relieved that my name appears fairly high up on the list of those who are speaking in this debate, because I feel that if it came very much lower down all the points that I was thinking about would already have been taken. But we must all of us be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, for giving us this opportunity of discussing, while we are waiting for the May Committee report, some aspects of what is one of our most baffling social problems bedevilled as it is, not surprisingly, by a perpetual and continual lack of resources.
Sending people to prison in this country has not always been looked on as a punitive measure. Time was when it was the prime task of the prisons to keep in safe custody suspected offenders, who waited there until the judges came round to clear the gaols. But I fear that as things have gone prisons are now an essential part—or perhaps the appropriate adjective is an inescapable part—of our system for dealing with offenders, notwithstanding the rather fundamentalist approach by the noble Lord, Lord Soper.
I should like to make two initial comments about the role of imprisonment.

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The first is that, although the prison population has reached a distressingly high figure, the totals of those who are convicted of crime have been going up even more markedly. To elaborate a point which the noble Lord, Lord Foot, made a little time ago, my calculation is that over the last decade the development of alternatives to imprisonment has meant that the proportion of convicted offenders who actually go to prison has just about halved, and that if these alternatives had not been in force the prison population would have been not 50,000, but something considerably more. So in sheer numbers the population has been kept down, although the figures are still frighteningly large and, as has been said, compare ill with other European countries. However, we are still a long way behind the United States.
But the development of these alternatives to imprisonment has not made the task of the Prison Service itself any easier. Many who end up there have already been through the gamut of alternative penalties, whatever a gamut may be, and are already the failures of the penal system, so it is not very surprising that the prison system should fail with them, too. Many are afflicted by emotional and personality disturbances. There are prisoners who, by the very nature of their crimes, are shunned by their fellows. There are the increasing numbers of life-sentence prisoners and of terrorists, both of whom present special problems of their own. Some of those who, in the past, might have provided some element of stability now go out early on parole; and there is the particularly difficult problem of the custody of the dangerous prisoner who presents a special security risk.
There are those who dislike the policy of disposing them in small groups, and who would prefer to go back to the solution of housing them all in one supremely secure establishment—a course favoured by the inquiry which was chaired so skilfully by the noble Earl, Lord Mountbatten of Burma. I must say that I myself still feel fairly dubious. No one could possibly argue that the present policy has turned out to be ideal in all respects, but I think that the Government would want to think long and hard before constructing fortresses—and the numbers
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are such that there would now have to be two of them—to a standard of security from attacks, from within and without (and we know from today's news the risk of attacks from helicopters), on a scale unparalleled anywhere, so far as I know, in the free world; certainly, much more formidable than Alcatraz used to be when the United States federal prison system ran that as its main security prison. The expense would be enormous, but apart from this I really wonder whether it could be the right policy to concentrate in one place, or in two places, all the really dangerous prisoners and, nothing but dangerous prisoners, with nothing left if things go wrong.
The second aspect that I want to touch on is the suggestion one hears quite often that prison is too soft. We have heard quite a bit already this evening about conditions in prison, and I wonder whether that is a view which would long survive going to the slopping-ou during the early morning in, say, Armley Gaol. But I know that there are those who think that prisons should be used more for punishment, and that deprivation of liberty, and life in sordid conditions are not enough. On this, I can only say that experience suggests that deliberately harsh and punitive treatment tends to result in more crime, not less. We constantly have to think about the victims of crime, but we have to think about possible future victims as well.
It is sometimes overlooked, even, if I may say so, by chief officers of police, that imprisonment is but an interval between periods of freedom. Hundreds of people come out of prison every week and I cannot believe that society would gain, or that crime would be reduced, if they returned to the community embittered against authority by deliberately punitive treatment while in custody. Nor would such a régime be fair to the conscientious men and women of the prison service, as the right reverend Prelate has said. It is perhaps not possible for the service to do very much nowadays to encourage and assist those in its care to lead a good and useful life, as the prison rules put it, but that is not to say that the treatment should be humane. I wonder whether, in practice, there is quite so much difference between humane containment and rehabilitative treatment as is sometimes supposed.

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I suppose that it sounds rather platitudinous to say that the most important aim of imprisonment should be to keep it genuinely as a sanction for those for whom there is really no alternative, but I go along with previous speakers in wondering whether we have really yet done enough.
The right reverend Prelate referred, among other things, to the fact that a number of mentally disordered prisoners are in prison who ought not to be there. The estimate he quoted was something over 600. Nobody knows precisely what the figure is, but obviously there are several hundreds, and they are prisoners requiring especial care in prison. I should like to ask the Minister whether he is able to say anything about the present state of play regarding what the Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, had to say about regional secure units for some of these offenders. The story has been quite bizarre, to use a fashionable word. Approval has been repeatedly given in principle and, as I calculated it, something like £24 million has been allocated. But progress is very hard to discern, except, possibly, in the area where the noble Baroness who is to follow me has been able to exercise a little local "push". It is now nearly 20 years since the idea was first mooted, and what have we got? We may have 200 places—rather less than that, I suspect—and I should like to ask whether the Government accept the principles of the Butler recommendations and, if so, whether they see any prospects of acceleration.
Then there are the two recent reports of the Advisory Council on the Penal System on the length of sentences. I wonder whether the present Government endorse the views expressed by the council in their interim report two years ago that shorter sentences could often be appropriate for those in the lower and middle ranges, as they put it, and whether the statistics are yet showing any sign of a change of policy on the part of the courts.
Then, at the other end of the scale, there is the recommendation in their substantive report last year about the proposal for power to impose sentences of exceptional length on certain offenders, simply for the protection of the public against harm.
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I do not happen to agree in detail with what the council suggested; but their proposals have never been discussed in either House, and the dilemma that they are dealing with is very real. The Butler Committee, too, had something to say on this topic. There is an existing power to impose extended sentences but, although it dates only from 1967, it fell into desuetude even more quickly than its predecessors. I realise that this proposal cannot be considered in isolation from the rest of the report, but it would be interesting to know whether the Government have any thoughts about replacing the existing power, which has clearly failed.
Then there have been references to "drunks". Is it true that the fears that were expressed when the straight sentence of imprisonment was abolished have proved to be justified? Has there been an increase in the number of those committed for failure to pay fines or for some other type of offence, such as a minor assault? Is what we read in the newspapers about the future of the detoxification centres at Leeds and Manchester as gloomy as it sounds? Are there any proposals for a rather simpler establishment to which the police can legally take drunks?
I have just time, I hope, to pose one or two more questions. Is it known when the power of the courts to suspend a sentence in part will be brought into effect? Are there any proposals under review for taking yet more current offences outside the criminal law altogether? Are the Government content with the number of places in bail hostels for those with no fixed address who otherwise would end up in prison?
I am not expecting the Minister to attempt to answer this evening more than a few of the questions in that examination paper, although I hope that he will be able to comment on some of them. However, I am posing these questions because all of them seem to me to relate— and I come back to this in my last few words—to the need to do all that we can to see that only those are sent to prison for whom there is genuinely no alternative; that they are sent there for a period which is as right and fitting as human ingenuity can devise; and that when they are there they are treated with the humanity that the social conscience of our democracy calls for.
6.15 p.m.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, everything that I was going to say has already been said. Perhaps, therefore, your Lordships will forgive me if I throw away my speech and comment on what has been said by other noble Lords in this debate. We are particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, for introducing this Motion—and I say "particularly" for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Foot: that for 10 long years there have been debates in your Lordships' House, that NACRO have done a magnificent job of work, that there have been pleas from different people throughout the country and yet we seem to be in a worse position today than we were 10 years ago.
Having dealt, as has the noble Lord, Lord Soper, with a number of people in prison, I have always found that they have a tremendous sense of justice. They know that there is a code by which we live in society and that if we do not adhere to that code there is no freedom for anybody. When they have been caught and justly convicted, many of them have said to me at the time, "Well, Miss, it was a fair cop". What they do not think is fair is how they are dealt with afterwards. And the fact that they feel that it was a "fair cop" means that at least with some prisoners, at any rate, we have something to build on. It is when they move into these tremendously overcrowded conditions that the sense of injustice sets in.
I should like to be practical and, therefore, to ask some very practical questions of the Minister. First, I should like to know how many young men between the ages of 17 and 21 who have been sentenced to borstal are still being held in prison. The longer that these young men between the ages of 17 and 21 stay in prison without being moved on to borstal the more they are harmed.
First, they start to make relationships with the prison staff. Many of these young men have been rejected. They await movement to borstal. They are moved eventually, but not for a long time. Secondly, they are not receiving the education programme which they should be receiving in borstal. Thirdly, they are taking up the time of the prison staff—time which should, perhaps, be allocated to men over the age of 21. One
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borstal boy, who was in Oxford prison, has written to me. He was in a cell with three others. He had a fight in that prison cell on a very hot night after an argument had broken out. He knocked out the teeth of another man. He looked at me hopelessly and said, "It was right that I was convicted, but it is wrong that I should live in these conditions".
What are the alternatives? In our last debate I put in a plea that there should be more hostels. A number of men would not need to go into prison if there were more hostels. One man regularly used to come to see me and say, "Goodbye, Miss. Happy Christmas". This was three days before Christmas. I used to say to him, "But it isn't Christmas yet". He said, "No, but I've work to do". The work he had to do was to "clock" a policeman in order to spend Christmas in prison. Now that we have a hostel in Oxford, that man is no longer in prison at Christmas; he is able to spend Christmas in the hostel.
I know that there are difficulties over the setting up of hostels. Nobody is prepared to have a hostel near to him. Furthermore, there is the question of the expense, although I would point out to your Lordships that hostels are not nearly so expensive as keeping a man in prison. There is not the money to set up the hostels, but we do not involve the community adequately in projects. I speak with particular feeling because I have the greatest admiration for, for instance, the Church Army, the Salvation Army and other religious organisations running hostels and I know that through the housing Acts it is possible to set up a hostel. What it is not possible to do, either through central Government funds or through local government funds is to raise the money for the furnishing. For a hostel for 90 men we needed £30,000 to furnish it. In one year we raised that £30,000—not from people who were wealthy, not from trusts (although we did have some money from trusts) but from the people of Oxford: the taxicab drivers, the firemen, the police, the men at British Leyland. And because they paid for the furniture at that hostel they are involved and take part in taking the men out from that hostel.
I know there are difficulties in regard to hostels for drunks and drug addicts;

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nevertheless, with a certain amount of assistance, with a certain amount of public work in the community, it is possible to get these hostels. I suggest that we should involve the community in setting up many more hostels, not just in one place or another, but throughout England.
Taking up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, about an amnesty, I would say just this. Of the men leaving prison at the moment there are a great many who, when they leave, have nowhere to go. Therefore, should the Government ever consider such a thing as an amnesty it would have to be a planned amnesty, otherwise it would be quite impracticable. Even at this time there are men leaving prison with nowhere to go. I know of one man who left prison and walked from, I think, the other side of Birmingham to Oxford in order to get into one of our hostels. It is unacceptable to the authorities that have set up a hostel that the authorities which have not set up a hostel are discarding their responsibilities.
In regard to the question of fines, I am astonished that the attachment of earnings order is not used more. Very often people say that the attachment of earnings order is not possible because either the man is out of work, in which case it can be worked out with the Supplementary Benefits Commission, or he has changed his job. But even if it were that in only a third of the cases there was an attachment of earnings order, at least, as the right reverend Prelate has said, there would be that one-third fewer people in prison because they had not paid their fines. Why is it that the attachment of earnings order is used so little?
I also ask why we, as a country, have not developed attendance centres. Nobody knows more than I do how difficult it is to staff and run attendance centres, but I believe that there are many people in this country who would give up their Saturday afternoons. I was speaking to three young men who had been arrested in the Oxford football ground for particularly nasty attacks on people and I said to them, "If you are found guilty, what will happen? "They said, "Oh well, we shall be sent down". I said to them, "If you were given the choice by the court to go to an attendance
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centre every Saturday for a year and not be allowed to go to a football match or to anything else on a Saturday, or to go to prison, which would you choose?" They said, "We would choose the attendance centre". I have often wondered why we do not have people sent to attendance centres with an order that the first time a person does not turn up at the attendance centre without good reason he will go to prison. I believe that would do a great deal that was constructive in the attendance centre system.
I wonder about community service orders. Here again I know that there is a division of opinion as to how they should be used, but I believe that rightly used they can, for a proportion of prisoners, be of positive value. I had two boys working in the garden of one of our establishments and they stole. I simply gathered everybody together and said, "There has been a theft. It will not be reported and if next Sunday the watches and the pens are on the table, no further action will be taken". They were on the table.
With regard to the question of overcrowding, I come from Oxford where, as the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, knows, we have the most overcrowded prison in the country, but it is one of the happiest prisons in the country. Why? To start with it is small; secondly, it is right in the centre of the city, near a bus station and a railway station and it is possible for social workers and the Social Services Department and probation officers to arrange for families to visit the men. There is nothing which humanises and helps a man more than to have his family visit him. People say to me, "But how awful for the children to visit". I do not think it is. What the child minds about is seeing his father; he does not mind what kind of house he sees him in. In fact a child said to me, "Did you know that my father lives in a big house?" It does not really matter what house he visits his father in, but the prison staff tell me that the men to have visitors to see them are far easier to handle than those who do not.
That brings me to the question raised by one noble Lord about more prisons. Of course, I agree that there must be high security prisons, but I wonder whether we ought not to think of small penal establishments throughout the country so that there can be visits by relatives and

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friends and so that there can be an involvement with the community. Many people who have prisons in their midst have no idea what goes on inside them. I think there needs to be much more involvement of the community.
Finally, I should like to take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, in regard to the Butler Committee report and recommendations. Sadly the secure units for prisoners who are suffering from mental illness have been extremely difficult to implement. Why? First, because nobody wants that kind of unit near them. I wonder whether we have failed to make the right appeal to the people of this country. Secondly, and sadly—and I say this with some diffidence and hesitation—the trade unions have not helped in this connection because they have said, "We must safeguard our workers and the conditions involved in working with such men would be too difficult". Therefore, I do not think we could abolish the prison system, but I think we could greatly change it. We could get many more people out of prison and therefore improve our Prison Service.
6.30 p.m.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I, too, am deeply indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, for introducing this debate this evening. I am unhappy, if I may say so, that I have not the privilege of following the noble Earl, Lord Longford, who is in a Committee upstairs and therefore has taken his name off the list, but I am delighted to be able to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, because she has said so many of the things I would like to say and probably will. I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, and one of the things that struck me very forcibly about his speech was the fact that he never once mentioned the victims, the aggrieved, the people who have had harm done to them, though it is because people are aggrieved that people are in prison. I think that at all times more of us should think of those people who have been hurt.
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, as the noble Baroness has been so kind as to mention me, may I explain that I was involved in a Committee upstairs
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dealing with victims, and may I venture to lay before her the fact that I am introducing a Bill on that subject next Tuesday? I hope she will be a strong supporter.
Baroness MACLEOD of BORVE: My Lords, I think I should declare an interest in this debate, or perhaps I should declare qualifications. I have been a magistrate. and therefore I have had the onerous duty of sending people to prison. I have been a magistrate for 25 years. I have also been chairman of one of the most difficult juvenile courts in this country for the last eight years. I am now also a member of the Parole Board. So I hope I have not a bias, but I think perhaps I have more than a passing interest in this debate this evening.
Of course, I would agree that prisons are fundemantelly supposed to be a deterrent. They are also supposed to be a place for rehabilitation. But they are also a place for those against whom the public are supposed to be protected. It is perhaps in that category that, as a member of the Parole Board, I find the real problems of dealing with prisoners who have been in prison for two years and more. I should tell the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, that in none of the cases in all the dossiers with which I have dealt on the Parole Board in the last 18 months have I known of any prisoner who has been sent out on the instructions of the Parole Board without somewhere to go.
I know that many of us who sit in courts are worried about the extent to which the law allows us—and I use the word advisedly—to send people to prison. Mention has been made of drunks, mention has also been made of fines. I would also say that in another category where we are allowed to send people to prison—that of rate arrears—it is an excellent deterrent. I have on many occasions sent people downstairs for not paying their rates, knowing very well that the man had got the money in his pocket; there was never any intention on the part of the person who owed the money of going to prison.
When we are speaking of overcrowding in prisons—and I do not want to labour this point because other noble Lords

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have covered it better than I can—I think we must also look at the next generation. The generation of juvenile delinquents with which I am now dealing may be—one always hopes not—the prisoners of the future. One of the things we should try to do to see that the prisons are not over crowded because there are more law-abiding citizens in the country, is to ensure that the young people in our country are brought up to be law-abiding. This, I know, is an enormous subject, one that is almost mind-boggling when one realises the extent of juvenile delinquency in our country today.
May I say that I am 100 per cent.—more than that if that were possible—behind my right honourable friend in another place, William Whitelaw, the Home Secretary, when he puts forward the idea of very short, very sharp sentences for young offenders. This, we know, has been tried and has proved not very successful for very many years. The reason, in my view, has been that the sentence has not been short and it has not been sharp. When I suggest that perhaps an ex-regimental sergeant major might be put in charge of somewhere where young people would be deprived of their liberty and sent for short sentences, I think they would come out wanting never to go in again.
I would advocate them going into such an institution for the much too prevelant offence of mugging, the offence of assault, and the offence which is far more worrying to me than any other now among young people and that is the carrying of an offensive weapon. I do not know if your Lordships realise that only four weeks ago at the Old Bailey there were three young men aged 16 who had individually been carrying offensive weapons with which they had killed three people. I feel that if they had not been carrying those weapons, if society had demanded that they should not carry offensive weapons, then at least three young people would be alive today. It is the citizen's right to be protected from the wrongdoer, especially the wrongdoer who commits robbery with violence—those who commit assault on the person. Unfortunately, one does have to face the fact that the only way to deal with these people, the only way that society can compensate it self for the damage that is done is to take away their liberty.
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Of course we need more prisons. We need much better conditions in prisons. But in the present climate, as I understand, it it is not likely that we are going to get more prisons. I have one suggestion to make. As the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, has alluded to community service, I am going to follow it up. I must admit that I did not really think that it would ever work; I thought it would too be haphazard. However, I have just read the Inner London report for the last six years and it does seem to be working, and I am delighted to report that. I am going to ask the Government this evening whether they will consider reducing the age of community service to 15. It is now 17 and over. But it is the 15 year-olds and perhaps younger whose minds and future behaviour can be steered in certain ways. I should like to advocate that magistrates and juvenile courts throughout the country should be able to ask for community service to be part of penal punishment meted out to those aged 15 and over.
My reason is this. To my certain knowledge and experience, a great number of young people are bored, a great number have nothing to do, a great number want to be told what to do. I ask the Minister to consider the proposal that young people should, through community service, be sent to hospitals where there are geriatrics, psychiatrics, subnormals, children who are perhaps so severely handicapped that some of us would not sleep in our beds tonight if we saw them; and the disabled—in other words, people very much worse off than any of the offenders who come before us in the courts. I have proved that, because they come into contact with people worse off than themselves and because they are given the responsibility of looking after patients worse off than themselves, they suddently realise that they are not so badly off after all, and that they can give something to society, instead of taking. It is only a small request, and it will suit only a small number of people. However, I can think over the last 10 years of at least a hundred children whom I should have liked to send, through community service, to precisely those sorts of institution where they would come up against people worse off than themselves.
I have spoken for 12 minutes and we were told that we must keep to a tight

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schedule. However, the basic fact surely remains that until we can persuade more of our citizens to obey the laws of our country, our prisons will unfortunately continue to be overcrowded.
6.42 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I, too, am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, for introducing this Motion today. I wish to confine my speech entirely to Asians in prison and to consider why so many of them are there. The major trouble is two-fold. First, there is often a lack of understanding of the English language and law. Secondly, many Asians are in prison because of a breakdown in communications.
I should like to refer to Law and Practice of September 1978. It deals with a case which I hope proves what I am trying to say. The court was told that the defendant wanted an interpreter, who was present, to help him. The judge then asked the man whether his name was Sohal and naturally, knowing his own name the man replied, "Yes". From that exchange it appeared that the judge thought that the man could speak English. He then asked the man what his religion was. The man consulted his interpreter. There was a long conversation and the judge became rather impatient and said that he wanted the defendant sworn because, "I don't believe him". This, although he could not understand what the chap had been saying because he had been speaking to the interpreter. The Sikh oath was then read to the defendant by the interpreter, in English, and he repeated it phonetically word by word.
At the end of the recitation, the judge remarked that his clerk could have done it just as well and said that there was no need for an interpreter. He then put questions to the man who managed to say that he had "children"—in fact he had three—and managed to say that he was "self-employed". Then the clerk informed the judge that the man had a clothing shop. The man was asked how much money he earned and he said, "Five hundred pound, maybe six hundred pound … sales …". He said the word "sales", but apparently the judge thought he meant gross takings. The judge then said that as he was a man with a wife and
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three children; he had money and he should either pay tax of £400 or go to prison for 21 days. I feel that was a very unfortunate misunderstanding for that Asian.
There is a need for interpreters at an earlier stage, not merely in court, because if they were present during the preparation of the defence misconceptions on the part of legal advisers would be removed. There should be a real understanding of what has happened before the matter goes to court, so that misconceptions need not be passed on in court. As a result, many men would receive shorter prison sentences or perhaps none at all.
For many years I worked in Malaysia and had from time to time to attend magistrates' courts. We had excellent interpreters in Malay, in Chinese in six dialects and in Indian in three to four. In this country we need better interpreters. An excellent survey has been made by Mrs. Horabin who is an Indian lady, educated in this country, and who is at present a probation officer at Wandsworth Prison. She speaks Hindi and Urdu. When, for example, she asked a prisoner why he did not defend himself he replied, "Well, you can't argue against the English burra sahib". That is the attitude which many take. Although they live in this country they still have their caste system. So, when they are asked to undertake laundry work (dhobi) or gardening (mali) or tailoring, it is considered below their social standing and it makes them feel like untouchables and that hurts their pride.
Another difficulty is, of course, that everyone is asked his or her religion. If when asked, a man says that he is a Moslem, he is put immediately on a Moslem diet and he cannot have the bacon, eggs or sausages which he has been used to eating at home. When they are asked their religion, they should be asked whether they are practising Moslems. If, for example, I say that I am a Roman Catholic—and everyone has to declare a religion—then I do not necessarily eat fish on Fridays. Therefore, I think that they should be given the choice of diet and that will make some of them much happier in future.
There is a further difficulty such as that of a young man quoted in this survey. He was 21 years of age; unable to speak

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the language of his parents and had no one to turn to unless he could get a very good interpreter in his own language. There are also cultural difficulties. Families may feel that a member of their family brings shame on them and they become frightened of going to the prison, becoming involved with the police, the courts, or probation officers or white officials who neither speak their language nor understand their culture, and so they cannot get help.
Nearly half the Asian prisoners do not have social inquiry reports. There is no record of contact with the probation officer at the time of sentence. In fact, no one seems to explain to the prisoner what is going on. I should like to suggest that a social inquiry report is needed and should be given to the prison welfare officer. As many men when they are working send their money back to India for their relations, their relations should be informed that they are in prison and the reason why money cannot be sent.
In Mrs. Horabin's survey mention is made of a Swiss lady, Mrs. Ellis, with whom I worked as regards au pair girls and who since then has been carrying on work for prisoners. She did an excellent job and was awarded an MBE. She now has support from the Gulbenkian Foundation and the British Council of Churches. She works with prisoners and immigrants. She does voluntary work herself, but she has three paid organisers and councillors. Training is provided for them by the social services. Those people deal with the welfare problems of immigrants chiefly at the Channel ports and the prisons at Canterbury and Maidstone. I hope that the noble Lord will see whether—if he has not done so already—someone can go and see this experiment because it would be worthwhile to try it in other areas. We need counsellors to give help to people in prison.
I should also like to suggest that Asian volunteers should be asked to collect books and recreational material, and to visit and help prisoners to write letters. Many prisoners cannot write for themselves. They need their own literature and their own recreational facilities. Embassies and High Commissions could be notified when one of their nationals is in prison. Moreover, students might
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be encouraged to visit. A prisoners' wives service is needed. I am due to speak to an Indian women's organisation next Tuesday and I shall ask them whether a number of them will get together and visit very lonely wives many of whom are unable to speak English. We want speakers in Pushtu, Tamil and Bengali. I shall try to find them and see if we cannot get a service going for these women. Perhaps we could have qualified prison officers in the prisons to teach English to the prisoners. Furthermore, they have a need for their religion and for visits by priests. I gather that they are not very good at doing this at present, but it is rather offending that the Moslems have to take off their tawiz and the Sikhs their bangle. I believe that practising Moslems are often not given adequate time for prayer.
Finally, I should like to join with the right reverend Prelate in praise of prison officers. They are doing a very difficult job, particularly as many of them have no training in relation to people from overseas who are now in prisons in considerable numbers. I am told that the older men—those who fought in the war—get on very well with some of the prison officers because they have an understanding; but the young ones simply have no understanding of the treatment they receive and become very resentful.
I agree with the right reverend Prelate that at present prison officers are poorly paid for the work they have to do. Their rest days are often lost; their one weekend in a fortnight may be lost, if they are called back on a Saturday or a Sunday to perform their various duties. With so many people unemployed, could not the Home Office persuade some of them to take up this very honourable profession? Day after day we hear that, for example, the Post Office is 7,000 employees short and that the prison officers are not up to complement. I think that we should encourage some of these unemployed people to take up these worthwhile jobs.
I hope that my noble friend Lord Belstead will take up some of the points that I have raised. Apart from my last suggestion, they would not cost anything. Such work can all be done by volunteers, who would be a tremendous asset and help.

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If my first suggestion is adopted, fewer people would find themselves in prison and those who did reach prison would be happier, have a better time, and a better understanding.
6.52 p.m.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I paused because I wondered whether my noble friend Lord Longford, who has arrived, wished to speak. I suppose that this will be the first penal debate ever in which he has not spoken. I personally regret that. It is 20 years since I first heard a debate in your Lordships' House, which is 10 years before I was honoured by joining it. In that debate, I heard the noble Lord, Lord Soper—to be revered even if not technically reverend—make a splendid speech by which I was very much impressed. I thought that he was mostly right then, and I think that he is mostly right today. I am very grateful to him for opening this debate so lucidly. It is a debate which is deliberately designed on a fairly narrow basis, because this evening we are not concerned with the battle against crime as a whole or even with the perplexities of after-care; we are concerned with the central sanction, which is prison.
I can think of no one who thinks that our use of prison today is all right as it is, and certainly no speaker has shown the faintest complacency. I am quite aware that the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has had the best part of a month in which to put things right, and we shall be very surprised that he has not succeeded in doing so completely. However, in due course he will tell us what he will do. It is a very difficult assignment for him, because this has been wrong under a number of Governments for a number of years. My own organisation, NACRO, of which I am proud to be the president, has been encouraged and helped by successive Governments to make, and assist others to make, experiments, and many of them have worked very well-but always on a small scale. There have been some real improvements, but the fact is that the conditions of 90 per cent. of the people in prison are as cruel, as frustrating and as incapacitating today as they were those 20 years ago, even though there have been some small improvements.
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During these 20 years I have petitioned, on one subject or another, every Home Secretary. I have known well the rapidly changing heads of the prison service and their rapidly changing senior officials: governors, assistant governors, uniformed staff, probation officers and welfare officers. From top to bottom all these people seem to be dedicated towards trying to do what we are all trying to do. Yet for some reason nothing happens at all. That is the object of this debate. In advance of the publication of the conclusions of the May Report—which I suppose we may expect by the end of the summer—we thought it would be wise to have a little general discussion. It is like those desperate charity committees, where eight good and unselfish people sit round a table and achieve absolutely nothing except to fight like cats and dogs. We must assume that there is something fundamentally wrong if so many people who know their business agree that something ought to be done, and nothing is done. It is a very frightening situation. A high percentage varying with different opinion from 30 per cent. of the prison population which is the figure the right reverend Prelate used, to 60 per cent. of the prison population, should not be in prison at all. This has nothing to do with overcrowding. Of course, it produces overcrowding. But we are con-cerned that those people ought not to be in prison at all. It is doing them harm and making the containment of the dangerous criminals, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, referred, who must be contained, increasingly difficult.
There is general agreement on the categories. The right reverend Prelate listed them, and I need say no more, except to run through them again. They are: the regular drunks, the mentally disordered, the petty inadequate, the drug addict, the fine defaulter and the illegal immigrant. These are all people who no one thinks ought to be in prison. Of course, occasionally, the odd one is a criminal, but that is a different matter. There is total agreement on this. We have had the reports of Butler and Payne, to which reference has been made, and the Weiler Report. My successor, as chairman of NACRO, sat on the Weiler Committee eight years ago. Nothing has happened. We seem to be going backwards in a I number of ways.

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There are a variety of alternatives to imprisonment, which have also been listed this evening. I shall not go through them again. Under this heading it is very disturbing that there has been a serious falling-off in the number of probation orders made by the courts. This must worry the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, certainly as much as it worries me. I should like to know whether he has any plans for counteracting that because it is a very serious matter.
I want to refer to an interesting document which throws a slightly new light on the problem—at least it did for me. I shall not waste your Lordships' time by discussing it at length. It is an expansion of the evidence given to the May Committee by two academics, Dr. Roy King and Mr. Rodney Morgan. They believe that failure to improve our penal system occurs because the objectives of the Prison Department have been totally confused by rule 1 of the Prison Rules, which puts the first objective of prison as rehabilitation through training and treatment. It is a long, extremely able and far-reaching report, and no doubt Mr. Justice May will pay attention to it. Incidentally, I hope that he will not be inhibited by his terms of reference from examining the one really important problem of prisons; namely, why there are so many people there who ought not to be there. However, I think his terms of reference cover that.
A case has been made out that rule 1 should be dropped and that the main objective of imprisonment should be recognised to be no more and no less than "humane containment". They argue—and I am inclined to agree—that if the prisons were reorganised on this principle, with many more local prisons and many fewer specialised training prisons and, more controversially, with the adoption of the Mountbatten rather than the Radzinowitz solution for the Category As—although, with the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, I am not certain it is the right answer; it is a difficult point—much of the overcrowding could be avoided without building new prisons. In other words, much of the overcrowding is administrative rather than inevitable. Obviously if one could save some of the large sums which must be put aside for new prisons, there would be something
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left to build the alternatives we have been asking for for so many years. I have to admit that some of our prisons have certainly to be replaced, but this is something which is quite different from building new accommodation, for new people, which will simply be filled up as soon as it is built. The replacement of prisons is something which I think is unquestionably overdue.
May I suggest that we change our whole attitude to prison; that we should accept that its true function is humane containment, and that we should concentrate on training and treatment facilities for offenders before they are sent to prison and, if in the end they have to be, for when they come out. The prerequisite of humane containment is to take the non-dangerous offender out of prison and do positive work with him in the community, not in building new establishments or packing them like sardines into local "nicks".
The various alternatives I have referred to, with one or two exceptions, are not in themselves punitive. But they are applicable to the petty and inadequate offender on whom punishment is shown to be totally ineffective. The sanction of prison lies behind such measures and experience shows that, in many cases, diversion from a life of crime can be at least temporarily achieved. At the other end of the story it should be possible to increase automatic remission—some noble Lords referred to this—from one-third to a half of sentence, which would reduce the prison population by about 6,000 at a stroke, and to allow much earlier release in return for an agreement to undergo further treatment of the kind referred to.
Every court should have at its disposal locally a number of possible alternatives to prison. Some would be punitive in the sense of compulsory work and deprivation of leisure, and some would not. But the courts would then have the answer to the question they continually ask themselves: "I know prison will do him more harm than good, but what else can I do? "That is what we have to try and deal with. The noble Baronesses, Lady Macleod and Lady Faithfull, spoke about the community service order. My information is that 77 per cent. last year were carried through without breakdown which, if correct, is very good.

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Enough has been said about the regular drunks and the mentally ill for me not to develop this point. May I say that I was surprised at the suggestion that the trade unions are being difficult about this, and if so I think this is a matter that we could perhaps take up through the TUC.
Baroness FAITHFULL: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for mentioning this. I was talking about the difficulty of the trade unions in relation to the secure units attached to mental hospitals, not the drug centres.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, I am upset if they are being difficult about anything, because it is an important point. I wish to say in all humility to the noble Lord that my information, which may not be right, is that there is a sort of departmental tangle here over the detoxification centres, of which the Weiler Report recommended a nationwide series, and of which two were built and one is now being closed. I gather that it is impossible, between the DHSS and the Home Office, to get proper agreement. I understand that a certain amount of money has been put aside for the secure mental homes suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and that this has been not so applied.
Before I sit down may I make two rather serious criticisms of the Prison Service, which I think on the whole I have been sufficiently long associated with for them to know that I am on their side. First, it is the system and not the men I am speaking about. It has not altogether diverted itself of the Victorian determination to humiliate the prisoner—shaved heads and the broad arrow have gone, and so has flogging, but not bread and water, not numbers instead of names; not slopping out, and not mailbag sewing. Letters are censored, which is a ridiculous precaution for any but category A prisoners, and a humiliating one. It is almost impossible for a prisoner to make a telephone call, which is absurd in 1979.
The treatment of unconvicted men on remand, to which my noble friend referred, is a disgrace to the country. I hope to talk about this on another occasion, as it is too big a question. The treatment of prisoners on remand is totally intolerable. It is also disgraceful that unconvic-
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ted men should be treated, whether they are Members of Parliament or dustmen, as Messrs. Thorpe and company were treated while the jury were out at their recent trial.
Is it the judge who decides that they may make a last minute break for freedom, and so suspends their bail? I can see that there may be exceptional cases when this is necessary. But I cannot believe that it is the judge who decides that they are so likely to make a bolt that they must be handcuffed on their way to the remand prison. Is this a routine precaution? Is it reserved for Members of Parliament? Phineas Finn was never treated like that when he was accused of first-degree murder. He had a room to himself with a fire and a book case, so the picture shows. I am afraid it is probably a routine practice for all classes, and just as unnecessary for the small as for the great. I want to know how we can change it. I should like some suggestions. If the noble Lord thinks that we can help him to do so we will, because it is absolutely monstrous.
Let me end by saying this. Despite the fact that prison is extremely expensive and damaging; despite the fact that agencies working in the area from the probation officer to the prison governor, and including many judges and magistrates, are united in their criticism of incarceration for a substantial number of offenders, we continue to lock them up. All informed opinion is against this; it is time now to take committed and positive action. Apart from shorter sentences, which we can perhaps discuss another day—and obviously that is one of the two main solutions for dealing with this—a wide ranging series of moderate and sensible proposals to reduce the prison population have been put forward and are working; some working better, and admittedly some working worse.
These involve a punitive element in that they usually deprive individuals of their leisure time, and there is also an element of reparation to the community; or else sometimes the opportunity for constructive achievement and a sense of personal fulfilment and worth, where people meet with non-delinquent volunteers, and the results can be very good. It is time now to invest our energies and resources in these alternatives, and to cease oversubscribing to what increasingly

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appears to be a highly damaging punishment both for those who receive it and for the society which suffers the consequences; always remembering that the theory of humane containment means that the dangerous man, in so far as you can identify him, must be humanely contained. We have had an interesting debate and I shall be interested to hear what the noble Lord will have to say to us.
7.8 p.m.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, in this House we make a habit of expressing thanks to noble Lords who are responsible for contributing subjects for debate. However difficult the questions—and the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kings-bridge, has put his share of difficult questions—raised in a debate in this House we are accustomed, from the Government Bench, to thank the noble Lord who is responsible. Well, I can genuinely say that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, not only for teaching us how to make a wonderful speech, but also because the problems presented by the prison system are matters for deep concern.
If we refuse to face these problems, unless we start, or at least try to start, from first principles and then set our sights on longer-term aims, we shall be unable to ensure that the hard-pressed Prison Service makes the most effective contribution possible to both law and order. Because this debate has concentrated our minds on these problems, I join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Soper, for introducing this debate today.
Almost without exception, I guess that your Lordships who have taken part in this debate can forget more about the prison system that I have yet been able to learn. However, I have had an opportunity to see some of the work of the service at first hand and I feel I must pay credit to prison staff for all they do, often in the most difficult circumstances. From his speech, I would also guess that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester would agree that prison officers are as anxious as any of us to see that their establishments should be put to the most effective use so that the prison system may contribute as effectively as possible to the criminal justice system.
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It is sometimes said that there are four main objectives of that system: to protect the public; to punish; to deter; and, more debatably, to try to rehabilitate offenders. Inevitably the priority attached to those four objectives alter as over the years changes occur in professional and public opinion. I think I am right in saying that in the past, and particularly after the enhancement of prison security following the Mountbatten Report, it was generally thought that the first three of those objectives would be fulfilled by imprisonment, and it was then thought that the main challenge for the prison system was how to improve the facilities for rehabilitation.
That situation, I realise, has been changed by two clear developments; a growing disbelief, voiced in your Lordships' House tonight, in the reformative effect of custodial treatment, linked with increasingly intolerable pressures on the prison system. With a heritage of Victorian buildings, the system has become desperately overcrowded. During last March the prison population climbed to a new peak of 42,500, with over one-third of all prisoners living two or three to a cell. Undeniably there is excessive overtime working for disciplinary and other essential staff. The Government hope that the report of the inquiry into the United Kingdom Prison Service under Mr. Justice May will provide a basis for setting the prison service on a stable and productive course for the future. We shall consider the committee's recommendations as soon as the report is received, but it is clear that it will be some considerable time before the necessary changes will be able to exert their effect.
It is against that background that the Government intend to make the best use of the very substantial investment in prison building and staff resources and to look for initiatives to relieve pressures on the system. A reduction in the prison population would obviously bring much relief to the service, but I must say that we have to consider such a reduction in the context of wider questions of penal reform. Nevertheless, the courts have in recent years succeeded in keeping the proportionate use of imprisonment fairly stable, despite the considerable increase in the number of offenders appearing before them.

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That leads me to say that we must ask this question: Could the courts go further by reducing that proportion even more? Reported indictable crime has risen at an alarming rate in recent years. For the protection of the general public, in many cases prison is the only available sentence which a court can possibly give. At the same time, it is the case that no countermeasure—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Soper, that this includes the act of imprisonment—taken by itself, and judged by the test of whether it prevents crime, has ever provided a conclusive answer to criminal involvement.
Given that some forms of sentence make less demands on resources than others, it is reasonable to ask: how can we refine custodial disposals or develop non-custodial disposals as part of a wider criminal justice policy? How can we introduce greater flexibility into the system so that it makes a more discriminating and effective impact, particularly on young offenders? These are the matters the Government are studying in the light of the recent Expenditure Committee report and the previous Government's Green Paper on youth custody and supervision, and it is valuable for Government to have the benefit of the views of your Lordships' House.
I will now try to answer some of the points that have been made by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, spoke about the deterioration of prisoners in prison and, with respect, I agree with him that, without some hope, imprisonment becomes intolerable to the prisoner and to those who are to look after him. To give some hope for the future is not a soft option, and the expansion of the parole scheme was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Macleod. In 1969, the first full year of parole, 27 per cent. of those eligible were released on licence; last year the figure was 47 per cent. And, of those, only 9·1 per cent. were recalled, with less than one half of them recalled for further offences.
So far as long-term prisoners are concerned, every effort is made to place the prisoner appropriately both from the point of view of security and individual needs, with an attempt to have a progression to less secure accommodation, with a review ultimately to release on
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licence. Your Lordships might be interested to know that in 1978, 81 life-sentence prisoners were released in that way. The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, referred to the view of Dr. King and Mr. Morgan and went on to commend the adoption of the Mountbatten solution for Category A prisoners; I am thinking of this in terms of long-term prisoners and high security prisons.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: I did say that was a very controversial suggestion, my Lords.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, I apologise if I misrepresented the noble Lord, who has now made it quite clear. I am really trying to put my own response to the King and Morgan view into the general context of what I am attempting to say tonight, but I wish to say a word about category A prisoners. I feel there are three interrelated issues here. First, there is the question of how to deal with category A prisoners; secondly, there is the question of what is the appropriate régime for longterm prisoners in conditions of high security where it has been the aim of successive Governments to provide a liberal, humane régime within a secure perimeter; and, thirdly, there is the recurring question of how to deal with long-term prisoners who present control problems.
As your Lordships know, in 1968 the Government of the day decided to adopt the dispersal policy. The policy has regularly been reviewed, and the suggestion has been made by more than one noble Lord that there still exists the Mountbatten suggestion that it would be more desirable to concentrate category A prisoners in fortress prisons, or that a variety of those proposals would deal more effectively with one or more of the major problems which I have tried to set out.
I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, who, with his experience, counselled caution in respect of the Mountbatten solution, and, with his experience of Northern Ireland, I am sure Lord Donaldson will not mind my saying that I am sure he recognises the obvious difficulty that could arise from placing within one or two prisons only a substantial number of prisoners who are adherents to terrorist groups, particularly those concerned, for example, with Northern

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Ireland politics. On the other hand, I realise that this subject raises serious administrative, financial and social arguments. Some of the arguments have been put to the May Committee and the Government await with interest what the committee may say.
Meanwhile, the problems of operating dispersal prisons are the subject of regular consideration and discussion with governors and I wish to assure the House that there is a readiness on the part of the Government always to consider seriously any suggestions for improvement in this field, but at this stage, and having heard the words this evening, we are not persuaded that there are good grounds at the moment for radical change.
It is often argued that the Government could rapidly solve the problem of the overloading of the prison system by a massive transfer of resources from custodial to non-custodial treatment. In essence, I thought that was the case put by Lord Soper tonight, and the words I have used are quoted from evidence given to the May Comimttee by the noble Earl, Lord Longford. In principle this goes to the nub of the debate. This is an attractive idea, but with respect, I consider that it has an element of placing the cart before the horse because any transfer from custody to non-custody must start with a transfer not of resources, but of offenders. To meet the demand which additional offenders given non-custodial sentence would place on, in particular, the Probation Service and allied facilities, additional resources would have to be allocated to these services at a time when, at any rate for some time, no less money would need to be spent on prison staff and buildings. Of course in effect this is the direction in which Government have been going through community service, though no doubt at a slower rate than some people would wish. But let us suppose that a massive expenditure programme to prime the pumps of non-custodial service were embarked upon. Would it in the longer term enable prison expenditure to be reduced so that overall expenditure was less and not greater? Of course it is impossible to say. The Government provide—
The Earl of LONGFORD: My Lords, in the longterm there really could not be any argument about it. Everyone knows that
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it costs far more to keep a person in prison than it does to keep him outside—it may be 10 times as much. Whatever might be said about the immediate situation, I should have thought that the long-term situation was incapable of being looked at two ways.
Lord BELSTEAD: My Lords, with respect, I consider that the noble Earl is pre-empting what he believes everybody else would believe as well. The difficulty —which I think the noble Earl has disregarded—is that while the Government provide penal facilities, they cannot prescribe how they are used. That is the task not of your Lordships' House, but of the courts. Legislation and other declarations of Government policy in relation to sentencing practice can of course go some way to guide the courts—I do not deny that—but a wide discretion must be left to the courts. Therefore, it is quite possible that new, non-custodial facilities would not be used by the courts wholly or even mainly in place of custodial sentences. The upward—
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, may I stress the point that I hear again and again from magistrates and judges: that they would use non-custodial facilities if they had them. I believe this to be true; and it is certainly true that there are not nearly enough such facilities for them all to be able to use if they so began.
Lord BELSTEAD: That may be so, my Lords, but all I can say to the noble Lord is that the upward trend in the use of custodial sentences, for instance over the last three years, suggests that the courts would not be as ready as noble Lords may seem to think to see a marked switch in sentencing practice towards non-custodial measures.
The speech of my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve reminded us of the difficulties of people who are victims of crime and of the importance of having the alternative of custody for non-payment of fines and for arrears of other monetary payments. I am not being too hardheaded about this, but I am saying that the courts are to some extent influenced by public opinion as they perceive it, and they might well feel that the present public mood is not in fact in favour of more and more leniency.

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In the light of what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, has just said, it may be, however, that the very success of the limited experiments for non-custodial disposals will confirm, for both Government and the people of this country, that we should continue the search for further non-custodial sentences. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Foot, and Lord Allen of Abeydale, that without these initiatives the prison population would have risen to intolerable bounds.
I have said some things which obviously sound unfriendly, and so I should like to make it clear that the Home Office and the Probation Service regard voluntary aftercare hostels, for instance, as an extremely valuable aid in the fight against recidivism. One of the initiatives of NACRO has been support for the many other voluntary organisations engaged in this field, and I should like to acknowledge the value of their efforts. Under the Home Office after-care hostel grant scheme we currently grant-aid through voluntary organisations 225 hostels, which provide 2,300 places for offenders; and a number of new schemes are in the pipeline.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull asked me about the number of young men aged between 17 and 21 who are in prison or remand centres waiting to go to borstal. They number 97, and I am sure my right honourable friend at the Home Office will want to look carefully at the speech of my noble friend. Other initiatives by voluntary organisations in partnership with the Home Office, the Probation Service, and other central and local government departments have established (as the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, knows much better than I) employment, education, and other day activity schemes for the care and resettlement of offenders. Combinations of these facilities are, and have been, accepted by the courts as viable alternatives to imprisonment. Here I will give the noble Lord a point. I thought that he made a very telling point—certainly it told with me; and I know the truth of it from previous years—about courts asking the question: apart from prison, what else can we do? Obviously, we must pursue, though within the general climate of public opinion, non-custodial sentences.
My noble friend Lady Faithfull asked me about attendance centres. I am glad
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to be able to say that, since the Government came to office, three more junior attendance centres have been opened, bringing the total number to 80, and a further nine new centres are in various stages of planning. We are determined to make such centres available in each area where there is a demand for one and where the number of boys convicted of indictable offences is large enough to make a centre viable. But there is a difficulty here about the number of 18, 19 and 20 year-olds who appear to be suitable for attendance centres, and, on that particular point and on the matter of the placing of the 17 and 18 year-olds, I should prefer to write to my noble friend.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester, asked me about mentally disordered prisoners, a matter which I think worries all your Lordships. It is true that there unfortunately remain in prison a number of offenders who are suffering from mental disorder of a nature or degree warranting their detention in hospital for treatment under the Mental Health Act 1959. The most recent returns I have show a total of 520. It is a cause of concern that the mentally disordered find their way to prison when they ought to be in hospital, and the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security are doing all they can to find solutions to the problem.
The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbey-dale, asked me specifically about the development of regional secure facilities by the National Health Service, as recommended in the Butler Report. Progress in their establishment has, I know, been terribly and disappointingly slow, though I appreciate the difficulties being encountered. However, the picture is not so entirely black as it may seem, and while we would wish that more had been done, it is worth acknowledging that interim secure facilities are now available in the Mersey, North Western, Trent, Wessex and Yorkshire Health Regions, and I am glad to say that plans have been received by the DHSS from 11 Regional Health Authorities for the provision of permanent secure facilities. The noble Lord—
Lord ALLEN of ABBEYDALE: My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the areas which are covered, but am I right in thinking that the actual places so far available come out at less than 200?
Lord BELSTEAD: Yes, my Lords; so far as I know, the noble Lord is right in thinking that, and some of the extra places that I have indicated are, I understand, being provided at the present time. If I have made a mistake about that, I shall certainly write to the noble Lord. Following that exchange, it is right that I should mention that the noble Lord asked specifically whether the Government accept the Butler point of view. My right honourable friends the Secretaries of State for the Home Department and for Social Services remain committed to the establishment of these units as a matter of priority.
The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, the right reverend Prelate, and the noble Lord, Lord Allen, also asked me about detoxification centres, if I may use that shorthand expression. The Government are awaiting the result of research into the two detoxification centres in Leeds and Manchester to see whether these seem to have any effect on the incidence of the offences of drunkenness. Before any of your Lordships jump down my throat for saying that, may I say that I am beginning to become persuaded, although I have not been to visit Manchester or Leeds on the ground, that it may also be important to look at other initiatives of a more continuing nature. The DHSS has been spending substantial sums of money —nearly £1 million last year, I discovered to my surprise—to extend the range of treatment and rehabilitation facilities for alcoholics, including drunken offenders. I think that this is the sort of initiative which might meet Lord Soper's criticism: that by giving a drunk more continuous stability and enabling him to pay whatever fine he has to meet, we may thereby reduce the likelihood of further offences relating to drunkenness.
What is happening, therefore, is that the Probation Service refers homeless offenders with drink problems to both voluntary and statutory after-care hostels, and those requiring specialised treatment may be referred to the facilities which I have mentioned, funded by the DHSS. It would therefore be wrong to think that
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detoxification centres are the only, or indeed the most appropriate, answer to this problem. They are important, yes, but they are only one of a range of possible answers.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGS-BRIDGE: My Lords, to be quite clear, may I ask the noble Lord this question? This amounts to a rejection of the Weiler Report recommendations, I take it, in 1971? This is the first time we have heard this.
Lord BELSTEAD: No, my Lords. was at great pains to say that I have not myself had the opportunity to visit either Leeds or Manchester, and I ended up by saying that I felt it would be wrong to think that detoxification centres are the only, or indeed necessarily the most appropriate, answer to this problem. This may well mean that they are part of a pattern, which is always good Conservative logic.
I have gone on quite long enough. If your Lordships will bear with me for just one moment, perhaps I may finish by very quickly answering three of my noble friends. I was startled, I must say, to hear my noble friend Lady Vickers say that there was a lack of social inquiry reports before custodial sentences for Asian offenders, and this is something about which I should like to try to learn more. Perhaps I may reply to the other points which my noble friend made in her speech by letter. May I thank my noble friend Lady Macleod of Borve for the forthright speech which she made, particularly in supporting the proposal in the Conservative Manifesto for what is known as the short, sharp shock treatment for young offenders. If I may say so, I agree with my noble friend that if such treatment would prevent further progression to custody, then I think there is much to be said for it. But at the moment we are still considering the best way to give effect to this.
My noble friend specifically asked me about the reduction to 15 in the age of eligibility for community service. I was very interested both in this suggestion and in my noble friend's recommendation that community service for young people should be served with other people who are more disadvantaged than themselves. Of course, the reasons for not having

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lowered the age in the past are that a community service order requires responsibility, co-operation and, indeed, also, consent to the order. There are certainly arguments for lowering the age. I should like to draw my right honourable friend's attention to the speech which my noble friend has made. Finally, may I say to the noble Lord, Lord Allen, on his question about bail hostels, that provision has been made, or is currently being made, for bail hostels in all the major urban conurbations. Before further commitments are made the Government will wish to consider the use made of existing hostels, and the effect on them of the Bail Act.
The Prison Service is an essential part of the system for maintaining law and order, whatever weight any of your Lordships may place upon it. But I join with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Rochester in believing that the service needs to know more of what is expected of it. I also agree with all noble Lords who have spoken that it is virtually impossible to do this in the present conditions of overcrowding. The Prison Service must be able to raise its aspirations if it is to guide prisoners from the adverse effects of imprisonment, offer worthwhile tasks, attract good quality staff and maintain public confidence. We shall come back to these important issues when the May Report is available; and I hope your Lordships will understand why, this evening, I do not go beyond recognising the questions raised in this debate while acknowledging the fundamental significance of them for us all.
7.35 p.m.
Lord SOPER: My Lords, I imagine that I have just a few moments, and I should like to occupy them by first of all repeating the thanks which I offered at the beginning of this debate to all those taking part in it, and not least for the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, the sympathetic demeanour which he has demonstrated, the options which he has left open for us and the prospects which lie before us. I may perhaps be permitted to make one comment about detoxification. When a Question was asked in another place not so long ago, I regret to say that the Minister repsonsible for the reply did not know much about it. He
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could have consulted me, if I am not arrogant about it, because I have been engaged in this job for a very long time now, and I would venture to say only this to the Minister. Detoxification by itself is a waste of time, unless it is followed by a rehabilitation programme and unless it eventuates in something like protected housing for at least some of those who are dried out. May I therefore, without presumption, invite the Minister to consider that kind of tripartite attempt to deal with one of these problems which, if it is successfully dealt with, will keep people out of prison.
I would accept the gentle rebuke of the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod. I hope she will acquit me of any lack of sympathy for those who are the victims, but I would suggest to her that pressure upon sympathy for the victim can very often mutilate the argument to which we were invited to attend this afternoon and this evening, and it is for that reason that I presumed not to mention it.
I would finally say this to the noble Lord, Lord Foot. When he spoke of loneliness I wondered whether he knew that it was the pure genius Pascal who said that a man's quality consists in what a man does with his loneliness; that is to say, when he is free to develop that loneliness, which is communion at its best, then his quality improves. The prison system is not what a man does with his loneliness but what is done to him by enforced isolation. It is the fundamental artificiality, I think, of the system, to which I will not revert in any argumentative sense; but I would suggest that the true loneliness, the individual capacity, the individual incentive, the highest point of the individual, can be served only when many of the suggestions that have been made this afternoon and tonight are carried out in a truly civilised society. My Lords, I am more than grateful for the opportunity to initiate this debate, and I am more than grateful for what has happened during its course. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

DC-10: ATLANTIC FLIGHTS
7.38 p.m.
The Earl of KINNOULLrose to ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light

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of the Bermuda 11 Agreement, what rights British carriers currently have in operating DC-10s across the Atlantic. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I rise briefly at this late hour, and, as this is my first opportunity, I should first like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, who will be replying, on his recent appointment to the Government. They are, I know, rather late congratulations, but he now replies on so many subjects with such mastery and fluency that I suspect tonight he might be almost relieved that he is now on a subject of which he has had in the past a great, long and distinguished professional knowledge; and I am sure he has seen that he has got a good brief for the reply.
The original Question I tabled somehow went a little astray. It was in two parts—and I have advised my noble friend of this—and I hope he will be able to cover both of them. The first point is the current right that British carriers have to operate their DC-10s across the Atlantic —and, of course, when I say British carriers I am talking of British Caledonian and Laker Airways—now that they have been recertified by the Civil Aviation Authority, and what right they have under the Bermuda II Agreement, Article 6.
The second part of my Question is: What grounds have the Civil Aviation Authority to recertify the airworthiness of the DC-10? I appreciate that in putting the question in that simple form my noble friend can easily say: "Ask the CAA", but I shall be touching on that point later. I do not think anything in civil aviation history has caused more confusion and a problem on confidence to the air travelling public since the tragic accident of the DC-10 of American Airlines in Chicago last month. It was of course a horrific accident, particularly in its size, and I know was very worrying. For those who were in the United States at the time, as I was, it was quite revealing how the television and Press gave an almost instant investigation, and it seemed that those who were responsible were quite happy to give interviews on the spot and almost without consideration.
That is of course a very different procedure to the one we adopt in this country. Nevertheless, what followed from that was, as we all know, a swift and condemning action of the manufacturers
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in the first place of the DC-10, McDonnell-Douglas, then the grounding of the DC-10, first in America and then throughout the world. Then the American passenger users' association went to court and obtained an injunction so that the aircraft could not fly in America. On top of that of course the FAA, the body which is responsible for certifying the American aircraft in America, was confronted with a congressional hearing and was quizzed publicly on how they had originally certified the aircraft and indeed how this sad and tragic accident came about as they saw it.
In Britain and Europe—and I hope my noble friend will be able to give us the figures—the actual number of DC-10s operating through the various European airlines is something like 90 as against 250-odd in America. I think that is roughly the proportion. The air travelling public in Britain were confused when some 10 days or a week ago the CAA, in conjunction with their European counterparts, announced, I think in Zurich—and then of course there was a statement put out in London—that they were recertifying the British DC-10 licensed aircraft even though the FAA in America had not recertified the American licensed aircraft.
From the travelling public's point of view, the confusion was compounded because the CAA, being such a technical body, felt unable, for reasons I am not sure of, to say precisely why they had taken this action. We know from public statements and television interviews that they made the most exhaustive tests before they recertified. We know that they have been granted full access by the FAA on all the information that the FAA had on the accident and on the procedures on maintenance. What the public have not been told is precisely why the CAA recertified the DC-10. For instance, do they in fact now know the reason for the crash? Do they now have this information which they are able to take into account in reaching their conclusion?
I do not criticise the CAA at all for the action that they take; I think that they are the most widely respected body throughout the world for their experience and their tests. In the past we know that when the Boeing 707 was first introduced into Britain they insisted on a modification on

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the Boeing which was subsequently adopted by the FAA. There is no question that one does not have confidence in their technical ability. However, from a public accountability point of view, for the confidence of the British air traveller and in fairness to the British carriers, more information should be given to the public. I hope that my noble friend can give an indication, an answer, or at least say that he will see that this matter is looked into.
What of course came out of this unhappy situation is something which the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, pressed my noble friend on, and that was that there should now be an international standard of certification. I do not know whether the noble Lord can say any more than he said at the time of the statement. I hope that my noble friend can also say what is currently happening in America and how soon the British Government anticipate the FAA now recertifying the DC-10s. This will be a great step and help to the British carriers over here.
I should like to ask whether the FAA have indicated that they accept the CAA recertificate, and now whether it is really a matter of technical procedural time before they can recertificate the airworthiness of the DC-10. I do not think that anyone who has flown in the DC-10 and anyone who has gone round the factory, in California, of McDonnell-Douglas would doubt that the DC-10 is a fine aircraft, and it is of course operated by very fine British carriers. Also, since the reintroduction of the DC-10 into service in BCAL, Laker and British Airways, how has the service been accepted by the travelling public? I hope very much that support and confidence has been restored by the recertifying by the CAA.
The second part of my question concerning the North Atlantic routes and Bermuda II comes down to one simple fact: the two carriers that have been particularly affected have been Laker with Skytrain and British Caledonian operating into Houston. Both these services have done remarkably well in the past two years. It must have been the most crushing disappointment to both carriers to find suddenly that they could not operate the DC-10 and would have to find alternative aircraft. As I under
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stand it, under the Bermuda II Treaty, Article 6, technically both these carriers now could reintroduce their DC-10 service on these routes. They could fly across the Atlantic; the Treaty permits this. But of course there are obvious problems, problems I imagine of insurance and on how enthusiastic the American travelling public will be. Also I am told that there is some doubt as to whether the aircraft might be impounded in America if they did operate such a service. I hope that my noble friend can touch on this delicate point—and I know that it is delicate.
I should particularly like to ask him what progress is being made in the United States in acknowledging the CAA's decision on the DC-10. If the delay continues for further weeks or months —which is damaging for British interests—will the Government then be pressing the United States Government with regard to what agreement can be reached on these airlines being allowed to operate under the Bermuda II Treaty? The Bermuda II Treaty is a web of complications concerning air fares, dual-destinations, gateways into the United States and London, covering two Departments, the Foreign Office and the Department of Trade. I know it is an area of immense complexity. I do not belittle that fact, but what I hope my noble friend can say tonight is that this treaty is a treaty which must be accepted in the spirit in which it was freely negotiated. If Article 6 does allow British carriers to operate British-certified aircraft across the North Atlantic, they should be allowed to do so. I hope that my noble friend can reply in that spirit.
7.51 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, it may be helpful if I start by giving a brief resumé of the history of this matter as we know it and then deal with the facts pertinent to the current operation of DC-10's across the North Atlantic. I do not wish to discuss in any detail the tragic accident of 25th May, which occurred to a domestic service operated out of Chicago's O'Hare Airport by a United States scheduled airline. The loss of life meant that this was the worst ever aircraft accident on United States soil, and it led to an immediate grounding of DC-10's by the United States Federal Aviation

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authority. Following technical inspections, the FAA again allowed the aircraft to fly but after fuller results of inspection were known they suspended the United States certificate of airworthiness for the DC-10 aircraft. In view of the urgency, other authorities, including our own Civil Aviation Authority, followed suit and suspended certificates. The FAA then issued a special Federal Aviation regulation known as SFAR.40, which prohibited operation of DC-10's in United States air-space. This was consistent with a subsequent order made by the Washington District Court at the request of the United States Airline Passengers' Association, requiring the FAA Administrator not to permit them to fly.
My noble friend first asked what new evidence had persuaded the CAA to reissue certificates of airworthiness to United Kingdom DC-10's. This is not perhaps the right place for a detailed technical discussion of the issues and probably very few of us are qualified to conduct such a discussion, but I understand the feelings of your Lordships and my noble friend in wanting an appreciation of the issues, and, in the hope that it will be helpful, I shall briefly put to you the main considerations at a level which I hope laymen can understand.
I believe that the FAA in the United States has in hand an intensive study of both maintenance and design considerations relating to the pylon attachment area. There are two fundamental design procedures for aircraft structures —either to make them "fail safe" or "safe life", and both are in common and frequent use either separately or in combination. The former—that is the "fail safe"—is based on multiple-load parts so that even if one part should fail another is capable of supporting the load; and the latter requires a more conservative approach to ensure that cracks cannot reach a hazardous level between inspections. That is the "safe life" procedure.
We understand that the Federal Aviation authority is at present not fully satisfied that the DC-10 pylon attachment system meets "fail safe", as one of the two possible criteria, and their investigation is aimed at establishing this point. The FAA has confirmed to the CAA that this is the only present question at issue with
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the DC-10, and the CAA is not in any disagreement with its American counterpart on this point.
However, the data supplied from exhaustive testing by the manufacturers indicates that with all the allowance for caution, the pylon attachment arrangements are entirely satisfactory, on the basis of a combination of "fail safe" and "safe life" philosophies. The fatigue rig tests—that is to say, the determination of the "safe life" of the aeroplane in this particular area—have proceeded to the equivalent of 120,000 flight hours. There are, of course, normal "conservatisms" which must be applied to such tests, but with these allowances they still indicate a safe life which is well in excess of the highest flight time for a DC-10 on the British register, which is approximately 20,000 hours.
Perhaps I may say that again in simple terms. The aircraft attachment points to these engines have been tested to a maximum of 120,000 flying hours and there is no aircraft flying, on the British register anyway, in excess of 20,000 flying hours. So on that basis there is a good way to go. Of course, the fact that it has been tested to 120,000 hours does not mean that we would dream of allowing it to go to that length. We might settle for half that; but even if we did we would still be way below the possible life of the component with present aircraft.
In all the detailed and intensive investigations and inspections of United Kingdom-registered DC-10's, there has been no sign at all of cracking in this pylon attachment area, and I should like to say at this point that I was myself at Gatwick this morning and had this confirmed to me by the engineers on the hangar floor at Laker Airways. I can also confirm that no United Kingdom DC-10's used the maintenance procedure for removing or re-attaching engines and pylons, which has been criticised as a potential cause of damage.
The "safe life" system which we are content to rely upon in part in this case is relied upon in many areas of structural design in all aircraft flying today. The very stringent inspection schedule established by the Civil Aviation Authority in collaboration with their European colleagues, ensures that they can say with

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confidence that the aircraft fully meets their normal criteria and is airworthy and fit to fly.

The FAA has not yet been able to give us a prediction of when their "fail safe" design studies will be complete, and I have no doubt they are also studying the "safe life" possibilities which have enable the Civil Aviation Authority and many other countries in Europe and around the world to restore certificates of airworthiness to the DC-10. I do not wish to criticise the FAA, who have a difficult situation and a difficult task, but I hope this explanation is of some assistance to your Lordships in understanding this very complex situation. We have total confidence in the Civil Aviation Authority and in the Airworthiness Requirements Board, as the responsible United Kingdom authorities.
The noble Earl also asked about the rights of access to the United states for United Kingdom airlines flying DC-10s. The fact is that by maintaining the special regulation SFAR. 40, to which I referred earlier, the American Government have made it impracticable for British and other airlines to resume operations by DC-10 aircraft to United States territory. The Canadian Government, whose authority bases its judgment of planes manufactured in the United States on the technical ruling of the United States authorities, have indicated that they will act similarly.
I have been asked about the position under the present United Kingdom-United States air service agreement, which is generally referred to as Bermuda II. This is a very detailed technical explanation of the legal position that I am going to give your Lordships and I hope, therefore, that you will forgive me if I stick very closely to the advice I have been given. It is a fact that under the Bermuda II agreement, as in the multilateral Chicago Convention, to which we are also parties, there is a very specific reference to this, and also to many other aspects of the conduct of air services between the United Kingdom and United States air territory. I do not wish to confuse those of your Lordships who are not experts in this particular line of country by giving too much detail from this very detailed agreement; but, briefly,
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Article 2 of the agreement grants rights to all designated airlines which, in our case, are British Airways, British Caledonian and Laker Airways, to fly over the United States, to make stops for non-traffic purposes, which include refuelling and so on, and to operate services on certain routes and under certain conditions for the carriage of both passengers and cargo.
Article 6 makes it clear that for the purposes of operating the air services provided for in the agreement, the United States must accept certificates of airworthiness granted to United Kingdom registered aircraft by the competent United Kingdom authority, which in this case is the CAA. In fact, although this is spelt out in detail in Bermuda II, and in many of the air service agreements that our European colleagues have with the United States, it is also a principle of the multilateral agreement on air services, the Chicago Convention, to which nearly every country in the world subscribes. Both we and Canada, for example, are parties to the Chicago Convention, and therefore there is no difference about the practical application of the principle. This I would summarise as meaning that every country is responsible for ensuring that its own airlines comply with at least the standards of safety set out in the Chicago Convention, and on the basis of these standards each country has the sovereign right to issue certificates of airworthiness. These certificates must then be accepted by other countries.
Perhaps at this moment I may just read the relevant part of Article 6 of the Bermuda agreement; that is, the Bermuda II agreement which is now in force. I read from paragraph 1 of that Article:
"Certificates of airworthiness, certificates of competency and licences issued or rendered valid by one contracting party and still in force shall be recognised as valid by the other contracting party for the purpose of operating the air services provided for in this agreement, provided that the requirements under which such certificates or licences were issued or rendered valid are equal to or above the minimum standards which may be established pursuant to the convention".
There is more which I need not bother your Lordships with, but I should have thought that that provision was fairly clear.
We are very much aware of the severe commercial penalties which our airlines are suffering as a result of these exclusions.

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The situation is unique, but, nevertheless, we believe that the provisions to which I have referred are applicable to it. In our approach to this situation, we are also concerned, while very much retaining our rights, not to cause unnecessary embarrassment to the FAA or to the US Administration, or to behave in a way which might make matters worse rather than better.
We are in very close continuous touch with the United States authorities on both the technical and legal issues. We have made our position clear and have sought a way to allow us to resume DC-10 flights to the United States as quickly as possible. Earlier this week, we also discussed the issue again with our partners in the European Civil Aviation Conference and, with them, met in Paris with State Department and FAA representatives to discuss the ECAC States' urgent wish to resume operations. The urgency of the situation was recognised by both sides, and if the situation is not resolved very quickly it is likely that ECAC representatives will go to Washington for further consultations very shortly. I would also draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that we understand that in the Washington District Court last Monday, the judge who made the original order to ground the DC-10s allowed it to lapse, leaving the FAA with freedom of action as to how and when it should act on the Special FAR.40.
I have tried to set before your Lordships as briefly as possible—but not very briefly, I fear, for this is a complex matter—the DC-10 airworthiness issue, particularly as it affects the operating rights of British airlines across the North Atlantic into the USA and also into Canada. I cannot pretend that it is a satisfactory situation that our own authorities should be convinced that the DC-10 is airworthy, and that such aircraft should still be prevented from operating on some of the most important routes in the world—those to the USA and Canada—and I hope that this situation will not last for long. It has had a particularly severe effect on both Laker and British Caledonian. The former has in the past relied very largely on DC-10 aircraft for Skytrain services to both New York and Los Angeles, and for many of its charter services to these and other points in the USA and to Canada; and British Cale-
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donian has operated most of its recent scheduled services to Houston by DC-I0 aircraft.
British Airways is less immediately affected. It has no DC-10 aircraft of its own, but it does have two DC-10s on a leased basis which are held on the New Zealand register, and these normally go to points in both the USA and Canada. All the British airlines have made valiant efforts to help themselves, and, indeed, I am pleased to report, to help each other to prevent even graver dislocation of services than they have already faced. But passengers have inevitably been disappointed in this, the peak season for transatlantic travel, and the airlines, after a considerable period when their DC-10 aircraft were grounded, are now unable to make the most economic use of very expensive capital equipment.
We very much hope that the American, Canadian and other authorities, who remain at present unable to accept DC-10 services into their territories, will soon be able to change their minds. We hope that they will do so in the light of all the technical evidence and information which has been, and continues to be, exchanged between the relevant authorities. If they do not do so, and it is clear that they are unable to do so, we shall have to review our own position and decide whether, and if so what, further steps are relevant and available to us under the various international agreements that I have mentioned.
As I have already indicated, we are most unwilling to contemplate this for so long as it seems likely that we can come to a timely, reasonable and amicable solution to this very difficult problem. But we obviously cannot sit passively by and see a considerable sector of our aviation industry continue to operate under great difficulty, because it cannot make the best possible use of what we believe is safe airworthy equipment for the carriage of both passengers and cargo. It is essential that there should be a solution in the near future and we hope that it will come very soon, through close and reasoned negotiations between the two Governments. I have said that we do not wish to precipitate any difficulties internally in America, but our duty is not, in the long run, to any body or company in the United States, but to British airlines and to British passengers, and we shall not neglect that duty.